Yesterday, the 21st of February, was Nathan’s first birthday. To think that it is already a year since he was born is quite hard to grasp for me as it feels like it just happened few weeks ago. So what do you do when a kid turns one year? My wife got all the answers!
Really, in case the birthday party had been planned by me we would just go out eating with the family but of course that is not enough for her. My wife had big plans, very big plans for this birthday of Nathan including several cakes and more than enough guests at our home.
First of all lets talk about the guests. Naturally my parents were invited and my brother with his girlfriend. To bring some more children to this birthday my wife invited my cousin and her husband together with their four children. Last but not least some people from her German language course were invited with one having a baby girl just one week older than Nathan. (however she is already able to walk for three months now while Nathan just did his first steps without support few hours ago!)
Now to the food. That was some rather intense topic as we had to drive to several shops to get all the right stuff. I offered my wife to go alone and buy everything so she can prepare more at home for the party but this didn’t work out. Why you may ask, well, I would need a grocery list but my wife just said “I don’t know what we need, I will know when I see it.” Great planning there! As we had already more than enough to do preparing everything for the celebration my mother got the task to prepare two cakes and my brother’s girlfriend has to create the real birthday cake for Nathan.
One might think that there just has to go something wrong because at least when I plan something like this there is always something which gets messed up. But big surprise, nothing went wrong at all. All the food was ready just in time when the first guests arrived. Furthermore all the guests were coming at the right time, something I have never experienced before as there was usually always someone who was very late or had suddenly other plans. Perhaps Nathan is cute enough so people don’t want to miss his birthday and of course free food? Or am I just used to the daily craziness in this family so I always expect the worst to happen?
After the main meal was done my wife brought the birthday cake to Nathan. The little one got a birthday song by all of us and then he was allowed to get closer to the cake. As he is still a bit too young to blow out the candles his second cousin Paul had to do it for him. After this my wife had a little game planned for Nathan. We placed several items in front of him such as a sports medal, pen, calculator and so forth and then we set him lose on those items. The idea behind it was that the item he grabbed first would be then his “future” profession. As he grabbed the pen my wife believes that he will be an author later. It seems me trying to read to him “The Hobbit” has already paid off.
From here onwards more eating continued, more noise by all the children, drinks were spilled and the trash mountain in the kitchen grew taller and taller. In between we opened the presents for Nathan and he was allowed to try out each one of them…with his mouth. He just still loves to try to eat everything he can grab such as his favorite chewing toy: The Glass Table!
Now its been already a day since the birthday party and we are still exhausted. To have so many children over and prepare this kind of birthday party is certainly draining your battery quickly. However something exciting happened today and that is all about Nathan doing his first steps on his own. So now I will leave the blog post as it is and try to videotape him testing his walking skills.
How are your experiences from birthday parties, your own and those of your children, or even grandchildren?
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Crazy Chinese Family 