Birthday wrap-up

Yesterday's timeline...a birthday review:

5:45 am: Lily comes into my room. I invite her to crawl into bed and cuddle with me. I tell her I can't believe she's a big 4 year old. She adamantly yells at me that "I am not 4 until I go downstairs!"

6:00 am: I tell Lily that we've decided she can't open her gifts until this evening when Daddy gets home. But that we picked one special present for her to open that morning. She requests to see all her presents. I reluctantly show her the *huge* pile in our closet (Grandma and Memere went a little hog-wild). She points to each one asking who it is from. Then she walks out and goes downstairs. Amazing restraint. She sees the present she's allowed to open on the kitchen table. I tell her it's okay to open. She says, "I'll wait until Daddy comes downstairs. Can I have some chocolate milk?"

6:30 am: Lily pounces on her present the second Jeff's feet touch the first floor. Andrew wakes up at about the same time. He immediately runs to her and hugs her and makes a big fuss about it being her birthday. I swear; Best. Brother. Ever. She graciously shares 1/3 of the figurines in her new set with him and they play happily for an hour or so.

8:00 am: We rush to get dressed and ready. We head to Dunkin' Donuts to get a breakfast treat and pick up some for her little party later in the morning.

8:50 am: Put Andrew on the bus.

9:30 am: Head to the local park. I sent a flyer home to every student in Lily's class asking them to join us for a playdate in the park. I brought donuts and juice boxes and a few other snacky items.

10-11:45 am: 8 or so of her friends showed up and they all had a great time running around like crazy people. The mom's had a good time getting to know each other. Lily felt special as her friends ran up to wish her a happy birthday. There were no presents, no messy cake. It was my kind of party!

12:30 pm: Andrew had a random half day of school. So he came home, and played nicely with Lily for...wait for it...THREE HOURS.

3:30-5:30: Everyone was sick of each other, over tired, crazy...etc. It was a long 2 hours.

5:30-7:00: We ate dinner (chicken nuggets and peas, per Lily's request). Then we opened presents. Michael was confused that the gifts were all for Lily, and then got into it...trying to hand her the presents. Lily kept throwing them down saying, "Not YET!" She didn't understand how remarkable it was. Then we had cake (which I somehow ruined AGAIN...seriously), which Lily happily ate only the icing off of. While she was eating it, she thanked us for a wonderful birthday, and then thanked everyone for each of her gifts. To balance out the sweetness of it, she threw in "And remember, Andrew, it is MY special day, not yours." Nice. Then off to bed she went!

Midnight, October 7th: I wake up to the sound of Lily's door opening. And closing. And then opening. And closing. I went to see if she needed to go to the bathroom. I find her standing in the doorway holding her new Pokemon toy (kudos, Andrew, on picking her favorite gift). She tells me, "I'm just waiting for morning, Mom." I (not so) gently led her back to bed and told her she had a long time to wait, so go back to sleep.

A successful day! Although in the 364 days until her next birthday, I will be working on her phone skills. Her grandparents and aunts called to wish her a happy birthday, and she was either uninterested or down right rude.

Kate called...and Lily wasn't patient enough to wait for her cousin to sing to her. I heard her yell into the phone, "JUST TALK TO ME." And then throw it back to me.

Sara called...and Lily answered the phone by saying, "What do you need to tell me?"

Pepere called...and Lily barely listened.

Etc etc. Nice. Something to work on ;)