No, it's nowhere near my birthday, nor C-chan's. But E-chan is 10.5 months old, and some of his "mates" are turning One. So the inevitable "let's have a group birthday party" suggestions get floated, and we, inevitably not wanting to be party poopers, but thinking the idea is a tad on the ridiculous side, bumble along semi-enthusiastically. Please don't think of the three of us, sitting there in the corner with glum faces, making sarcastic comments all afternoon, while the rest went overboard with helium balloons, "happy birthday" banners, and Elmo cream cakes. (I think I avoided sarcasm, and only managed to utter one "they're only one years old! they won't remember this!" comment, at which point some of the other parents nodded heartily in agreement but decided it was wiser to remain silent).
It's always fun to catch up with other parents, and see how the babies are all so similar, yet so individual. 3 of the other babies are walking, and little E-chan sits there watching quietly, occasionally getting pushed, shoved, or climbed over, but bearing it like a trooper. He's such a gentle baby, and he's often content watching and interacting with adults because other babies rarely return his smiles. He'll probably just bypass crawling and go straight to walking, as I hear some babies do.
The group we caught up with yesterday are from our Antenatal class, who are an interesting bunch to stay in touch with. When we met them, we felt we had little in common. We had a reunion after the babies were born, and I kept an open mind about the whole thing. From a purely pragmatic point of view, there are 2 ladies and 1 man who work in Preschool/childcare industry, and another lady who is a Primary teacher. As I have no close friends or family in this area, inside knowledge is useful. Strangely, but as I half expected might happen, gross-out Dad (who always asked questions about epesiotomies in our antenatal class) and his partner are the ones we possibly have most in common with, and he's being a stay-at-home Dad, which is rare and very cool.
The whole birthday and christmas thing is so wierd for the under 2's. People are so impatient to make a fuss about it. But in reality, the kids play more with the wrapping paper than the presents. We felt it unnecessary to give E-chan chocolate at his first Easter, nor did we give him cake yesterday. We're waiting until he understands what it's all about. However, E-chan's actual birthday falls on a long weekend, and all the rellies are coming over from 'delaide. And we're not about to knock back visits from doting family because we want to keep his birthday low-key and not go overboard with buying stuff...
By the way, if the weather's fine, we might have a picnic on the Queens B'day long weekend (his birthday). Too late to catch Bsharp I understand :( but others are welcome if you want to come along and give him a birthday cuddle.
No comments:
Post a Comment