Being Sara

Well, we have started to plan Xander’s first birthday party. I feel like the first one is a big deal, and so I’m trying not to screw it up too much. Since Xander doesn’t really have friends of his own yet, we’re inviting friends and family over for a barbecue in the afternoon, the Saturday after Xander’s birthday.

A few of our friends have kids of their own, who will hopefully attend, so I’m planning on making up goodie bags for them, but not for the adults, hopefully that’s ok. I’m thinking that I’ll try to find a cupcake cake (one of those cakes made out of cupcakes with some sort of unified frosting image), as cupcakes are a heck of a lot easier than an actual cake, and I’m definitely not confident enough in my baking abilities to make anything edible for a large crowd.

As most of the group will be adults, I’m assuming that eating, visiting, and opening presents will be enough activity for them. I’ll pull some of our lawn games out for the more athletically inclined guests, but I’m betting that most people will prefer to simply nibble food and chat with friends/family.

I’ve put Zach in charge of balloons, but other than that duty, the rest of the party preparations are my responsibility. All of the party supplies that I need to order have already been delivered. I’ve got the invitations going out in the mail tomorrow (a few days later than I would have preferred, but that was due to circumstances beyond my control). I don’t need to rent or reserve anything, so the rest of the prep work can wait until the weekend before the party when we’ll do some serious house cleaning and party supply shopping.

I read a comment today that talked about a lady buying gifts for all of the kids in her child’s day care, as well as the teachers who interact with her child. She was looking for suggestions on what to buy without spending too much money. Is that common practice? To buy gifts for kids and teachers in day care on your child’s birthday? I’m new to this, so if this is something I should do, I need to know about it soon so I can prepare gifts for the 30+ people at Xander’s day care. If anyone has any insight (on the gifts, or on first birthdays in general), I’d love to hear it!

baby, babies, infant, infants, parent, parents, parenting, parenthood, mother, mothers, motherhood, birthday, first birthday, 1st, birthday, birthday party, party planning, gift, gift giving, party preparation

Related items

• Alexander Tirrell - A Year In Review
• Xander Week 49 - Transitioning to Milk…
• Xander Week 48 - First Ice Cream Cone
• Xander Week 44 - Water Fun Time
• Car Seat Review

Before Xander was born I heard all kinds of warnings about how difficult babies are, and how hard the first few weeks/months can be.  I even wrote a post about this trend.  When Xander arrived, I was prepared for the worst - minutes of sleep every night, crazy hormones/baby blues, never having time for a shower or a meal, etc.

So, we were pleasantly surprised when Xander wasn’t that difficult.  He cries when he needs something, but when his need is met, he stops fussing.  At first, this was a game of elimination - are you wet? No, are you tired? No, are you hungry? Yep!  We are getting better a figuring out what he wants, and since he put himself on about a 3-4 hour feeding schedule, we generally have a pretty good idea of when he’ll want to eat. Even when we introduced bottles to Xander, he was amazingly easy.  The first attempt was successful, and since then, he has never questioned any nipple style, or even the temperature of the milk or formula that we’ve fed him.  This makes traveling with him much easier, since we can bring along some formula in a bottle, add water when he’s hungry, and keep going without having to find a quiet place and an extra 30-40 minutes to nurse him.
Don’t get me wrong - some days were pretty tough.  Some nights he just wasn’t interested in sleeping, and even though he was clearly hungry, he was crying too hard to latch onto my breast.  We definitely had our challenges, but the good stuff has far outweighed the hard stuff.

Last night Xander again proved that he is indeed an easy baby.  Let me start by explaining that the day we brought Xander home, we had our bedroom set up with a bassinet for him to sleep in.  When it was time for us to go to sleep, we set him down in the bassinet, and assumed that he would go to sleep, or at least lay there quietly.  Boy were we wrong.  So, that first night, we built him a little nest in our bed for him to sleep in without getting smothered by us or by bedding.  We tried the bassinet a few more nights with the same result, and eventually gave up and let him sleep with us full time.  During the day he will sometimes nap in his car seat, but we found if we let him sleep in his car seat at night, he would only sleep for an hour or two at a time, while if he slept with us, we could get in 4-5 hours of sleep at a stretch.  Despite this “accidental parenting” that we had started, we still wanted Xander to sleep in his own space.  I began to stress about the negative impact we were having on Xander, and wondering how we were ever going to convince him to sleep on his own - particularly when both Zach and I were back at work.   Since I was worrying about this too much, I decided to let this be Zach’s project, since he would have 6 weeks to change the sleeping arrangements.  Last night was the first attempt.  Zach and Xander fell asleep on the couch around 9pm.  I did a little housework, prepped the bassinet in the nursery for Zach and turned in around 10pm.  About midnight, Xander woke up.  Zach fed him, and put him in the bassinet, where Xander slept peacefully for 4 hours!  I nursed Xander at 4pm, and then Zach put him back in the bassinet, where he was still sleeping peacefully when I left the house at 7:30am.  I was so worried that the change in sleeping arrangement would be an uphill battle for us, filled with many sleepless, crying nights.  Xander proved me wrong by simply accepting this new arrangement without complaint, and sleeping more peacefully than I could have hoped for.  At this rate, he will hopefully be sleeping through the night in a month or two!

Another thought that crossed my mind this morning as I was marveling at how lucky we’ve been so far.  A lot of times you’ll hear people say that if you have a difficult first child, your second one will be easy and vice versa.  Since Xander is clearly an easy baby, it makes me nervous about what his future sibling will be like.  I know it’s just an old wives tale, but still…

babies, baby, difficult baby, easy baby, infant, infants, motherhood, parenthood, parenting, parenting challenges, sleep, sleeping

Related items

• Xander Week 50 - Birthday Party Planning
• Alexander Tirrell - A Year In Review
• Xander Week 51 - LUVS Second Attempt
• Xander Week 49 - Transitioning to Milk…
• Xander Week 48 - First Ice Cream Cone