As Blake’s first birthday approaches, I am both excited and filled with dread. I am excited to celebrate our little guy with our friends and family, to formally acknowledge that he is crossing the line from infancy to toddlerhood. The thought of preparing a special meal and baking a beautiful cake is exciting, too. I’m also thrilled about the theme that I have picked out – since Blake was born two hours after St. Patrick’s Day, I have decided to go with a St. Patrick’s Day themed birthday party. Yes, I am fully aware that St. Patrick’s Day is more of an adult holiday than one for the kids, but the wee lad is a wee bit Irish and you can rest assured that the only debauchery that will be taking place at our house will involve eating doughnuts in the morning and cake in the evening.
So, what exactly is it that I am dreading? I am concerned about the gifts, or more specifically, what will happen once Blake has his gifts and tries to play with them. I am thinking of getting something for Dylan “from Blake” as a sort of “thanks for being a great brother” present, but I have read both good and bad things about that. Even if Dylan does get a gift, I am not looking forward to negotiating battles over the new toys.
For example, I am thinking of getting a Plasma Car for Blake. Dylan has a ride on toy for indoors, and now that Blake is almost walking, I think that he would love something like that. However, based upon what I saw regarding the Christmas toys, I am sure that Dylan will also like it to the point that he wants to use it all of the time, with the expectation that Blake will not use it or that Blake would be content to use Dylan’s old ride on toy. Blake is fairly mellow, but he does have a strong sense of right and wrong and gets very upset when Dylan snatches toys from him or tries to offer him a “substitute” toy in order to get him to give up the toy that he is playing with. Yup, I’m a wimp (sigh) and knowing that difficult times lie ahead as I continue to help the boys negotiate the tricky area of sharing toys is making me feel a bit weary. I will just have to try a little bit harder to forget about that for the time being, and enjoy preparing for and celebrating Blake’s birthday.