My youngest is 4!
We celebrated with a pancake breakfast party to start the day off right. Presents and pancakes surrounded by balloons and black and white print outs of free Peppa Pig pages.
We are livin’ large, folks.
Seriously, though, the whole time I was decorating with the home-grown flare, I was asking myself “Is this enough???” And I can tell you with relief, it is. My son is so much more work than my daughter. Is this a first vs second kid thing? I don’t know. I think my daughter is just easier going. Easier to please.
As proof that marketing to kids works like a charm, she only specifically asked for 2 things. The first is a result of constant commercials on kid’s networks. Snakeez. ( https://www.getsnackeez.com/?mid=5239720 for those of you living in a cave, or without small children or pot-smoking teenagers) She would scream whenever the commercial would come on. My sister in law was not excited when I told her this was, in fact, what the kid wanted. God bless her, she sent her 2 of them! There is not a kid on the planet happier to get a snack-friendly sippy cup than my daughter.
The other thing she asked for was an over-priced outsourced toy relating to a show she rarely watches, surprisingly. The Doc McStuffins mobile ambulance thing. My daughter is all about the stuffed animals, and really could care less about dolls – much to my mother’s chagrin – so it was natural she would want to fix/bandage/monitor/thermometer her critters with a giant rolling talking pull cart that lights up and does everything but burp and fart.
She was excited to begin with. The more she played with it, however, the more annoyed she got that Doc was the voice for everything. She would furrow her little barely four year old brow and declare, “It should say Gemma! Why does it keep saying Doc?! IM the Doctor!”
Between that little annoyance and the doors falling off randomly ( i.e. when my 45lb preschooler sits on it) I was ready to take it back and swap it for something useful … like groceries. But alas, it goes everywhere with her and as an added bonus, my 8 year old son loves to try and hijack the thing from her. It’s insane. I’m like, HEY! It’s a pink sparkly girl toy. For little preschoolers. Get it together, man!
But i’m too modern and forward thinking to say that out loud. I just shout it in my head and let it reverberate across my skull.
So my plans to take my daughter out and glam it up and hit the stay at home mom version of ‘the town’ was cut short by my mini me stating she wanted to say home all day… aaaaaall day. I guess she didn’t get the memo that the pedicure I was dangling in front of her nose was really MY reward for pushing her out four years ago. Her painted toes would just be the bonus. Oh well.
She wanted to venture out for only one thing, and that was to have dinner at the local Mexican restaurant we frequent a tad too often. She didn’t choose it because it’s her favorite food. In fact, she orders chicken strips when we go there. Nope, my little diva wanted to go there strictly for the sombrero you get to wear while they sing to you.
So the icing on the birthday cake was this:
Happy Birthday, Little Panchita !
Sarcasmica 