For Eli’s first birthday, we vacationed at the Oregon Coast with some of his grandparents. His second birthday was spent in our hometown attending a funeral. We opted to throw him a park party since it was one of the few times his big family would be around. Our original plan for his third birthday was to go to Disneyland. Clearly, we are not big party people.
While I love getting together with people and celebrating, I’m almost always behind and running late, typically celebrating holidays a day to a week late. Also, my little man? Not the biggest party person. He likes other kids, plays well, enjoys hanging with adults, but the general chaos of large celebratory groups of people contained in one room is really not his style. He typically ends up covering his ears and crying when confronted with a loud crowd. Knowing the limits of our child, and my penchant for not going all out on the decor and activities of a toddler birthday, we decided to throw a really low key birthday to celebrate the 3-year-old milestone. By low key, I mean having people over for a dinner with balloons and cake. We ended up having quite a few cancellations and ended up canceling the party, changing our birthday direction once more.
What started as a consolation prize of a day, will most likely become our 3-year-old birthday party tradition. We did a day full of Eli! When planning his birthday party, we were trying to find a compromise between our child’s needs and the general societal pressure of big birthday parties. With a day of Eli, it got to be all about him. We went to Mexican food and he ate his body weight in chips and bean dip. We did do one thing for us, that resulted in tears, which was to have the servers sing happy birthday. We went to a fun center where he rode kiddie rides and “played” arcade games. We tossed balloons all over the house. We took a trip to Target and let him pick out whatever toy he wanted. We had birthday cake and he got to blow out candles 3 times and hear the birthday song over and over. More than anything, he got showered with the undivided attention of both of his parents at the same time.
Unless you have a highly sociable toddler, birthday parties for 3-year-olds and under are not for them. It’s so much fun to celebrate our babies and watch them open presents and crash from a sugar high unless your kid doesn’t like it. The longer I’m a mother, the more I realize that I am the only one that knows what works for my kid. If Eli would have been thrilled with a big party, we would have wanted to have one for him. The opposite is just as true — forcing him into a party would also be unfair. For now, at this stage and this age, my husband and I are his best friends and all he wants to do is spend time with his best friends.
guest
Super sweet, and what a cool cake, too. I will say our now 4-year old LOVED her 3rd and 4th birthday parties! Not sure what we’ll do for the next one. A friend gives her child one big (with friends) birthday party every 5-years. I like the idea of doing something like that…but would probably do it every 3-years or so. I think birthdays are a special time, no matter how you choose to celebrate.
pomelo / 5621 posts
I think that is awesome. Very cool cake.
DS is 4 this month and we are having a party at home with a few daycare friends. He is a shy kid but knows what parties are about and is super excited. I’ve kept it pretty simple and let him pick everything we’ve bought.
His first and second birthdays were just with us and grandparents and they were awesome.