Construction Birthday Party Take 2

Our son turned 5 a couple of weeks ago and he wanted "another" construction birthday party.

For his third birthday I went all out, full-on Pinterest worthy, you can check it out here. There were printables (the bane of my existence as a mom), a construction striped cake that took 3 days to bake, assemble and decorate, mason jar sippers, favors, and a theme-specific art project.

This year, 4.5 weeks after he birth of baby #4, I was suuuuuuper laid back. Evites over paper invites. No balloons, no printables. We did end up baking the cake from scratch, but nothing special inside, and I "decorated" it with some toys I found in the play room...

I just now realized I forgot to wash them before putting them on the cake... At least no one got sick!



We did a book swap instead of gifts (see more book swap information in this post from my daughter's 6th birthday party). We had a pinata (ordered from Amazon 2 days beforehand), and some last minute treat bags with construction sticker books and play-doh. All from Amazon:) Yet another reason that I use Amazon Smile so a small percentage of my purchases go to the charity of my choice.



So, those are the very few pictures I managed to capture. Plus a pic of all 6 of us. It was from mother's day, but let's pretend I took a picture at the party. Except I couldn't because our 6.5 year old was at a friend's birthday, "not a preschool/baby party".

Jessica

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Moms- We Are Doing Enough

Yep, whatever it is. Whether watching TV or reading a book to your kid, it's enough. Since it's Mother's Day I've been thinking about all that ridiculous mommy guilt and the comparing and competing we (the mommies) engage in. So I'm deciding to end it all and declare that whatever I am doing, it is enough.

So on Friday when I took the 4 week old in the car, then left him in said car with the nanny so I could attend my 2 year old's tea party at preschool, that was enough. Because I wanted baby #3 to have my undivided attention for the entire 22 minutes that I was in her classroom, sitting at a table with a name card she made (a handprint flower, awww), and we sipped lukewarm chamomile tea and ate cheddar cheese finger sandwiches. At a table for two, "we are all alone at our table". That's what my little princess told me, something that rarely happens in a family with 4 kids. We sipped tea and ate and talked and placed our napkins on our laps. Then she refolded her napkin multiple times, pointed ot her favorite things in the classroom, and we talked our "her baby" and how he was all hers and what she would teach him when he was big enough for preschool.

Miraculously the newborn slept the entire time so when I came out he was just waking up and I nursed him in the car before heading home.

And sometimes (or a lot of times), I let my almost-5 year old watch TV shows or play educational computer games because that will entertain him and keep him quiet. My 2 year old knows how to turn on her own Kindle Fire and watch Frozen or Umi Zoomi or "the funny one". My 6 year old gets read to each day and her homework is done each week, but somedays she goes to school in the same clothes as the day before because I don't want to fight with her over clothes one more day.

But this year, 2014, is the year that it is all enough. I am enough. They are getting enough. Because the most important "thing" is love, and with parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles each one of them is getting more than enough love.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers, grandmothers, and mothers-in-waiting.

Jessica

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