Toddler Peer-Pressure And A Birthday Party From The Viewpoint Of A 2-year Old

We went to yet another kid’s birthday party over the weekend, but this time was a little different because my daughter insisted on bringing her Fisher-Price toy camera along. You know, the one Santa gave her for Christmas and was interested in for about a week and then decided it wasn’t worthy of attention anymore because she thought a cheap Happy Meal toy was much more appealing…

Figure 1: Happy Meal Toy
(Uh, what is it and what does it do? Oh yeah, make annoying noises...)

Well, I’m not sure what caused this sudden interest of picture taking again but it seemed as if she wanted to take the camera everywhere. To the store, park, pool, bathroom (while I was using it), etc.
The wife and I suspect that she saw one of the neighborhood kids or somebody on TV using a camera. It’s strange, if an older kid or character does something – she’ll want to do it too. Except, of course, pooping on the potty.

Her giving into peer-pressure scares me. For instance if Elmo told her to steal my credit card, passport, social security number, kidney, and send them to him she would do it in a heartbeat. By the way, that’s exactly why I sleep with the door locked at night.

Anyhow, she wandered around the party with the camera taking pictures for about an hour or two until she filled the 1,300 picture capacity memory card.

A few birthday pictures with added titles:

" Child with Long Mysterious Shadow"

"Sand detail and its shoes"

"Untitled, with clouds and bars"

"Rocking Horse with No Friend to Share Ice Cream With"

"The Man Imposing His Rules on the Little People"

"The Unknown Climber"

I knew she was done when she walked up to me while I was eating my Jell-O and cake, handed me the camera, and showed me her index finger saying “Look dad-DEE!... Booger.”

And then she wiped it on my pants and ran away.

Birthdays That Last A Week, Bikes For 2 Year-Olds, Gymboree Party, and Contributing To Harry Potter’s College Fund

One of the benefits of my daughter being an only child (for now) is that her birthday has turned into a week long celebration. Every morning it's the same greeting "It's MY birthday!" To strangers she announces, "My Birthday!". I still don't think she really knows what that means.
On her actual birthday my wife made birthday cupcakes, had a small party with her weekday friends, and our sitter. And later we took her to one of those places with nothing but bounce-houses. We also gave her a gift - a bike. She’s been asking for one for about a month now because the bigger kids around the neighborhood have them.

Skip The Tricycle And Go For the Well-Design Bike!
The wife and I have had some disagreements about the type of bike we were going to buy her -- she wanted to get her one of those normal tricycles with like Princesses or Dora on it. I on the other hand wanted to get a balance bike, LikeABike, that trains toddlers how to ride a real bike (skip the tricycle phase.) And because of the minimalist design I wanted customize this bike myself with stickers I create. Oh, and did I mention the bike looks cool too?
I did end up buying the LikeABike knock-off at Target (only $50 compared with $270 for the “original” Sorry, LikeABike - the difference is $220… that’s a big deal.)
While putting the bike together, my daughter was jumping all over the place like an excited monkey. That’s until I put it on the ground and put her on it only to find out she’s about 2 inches too short to hold it up (I guess that’ll go in the closet for a few more months…)

A Birthday Party At Gymboree (Without Elvis)
This time last year, I sold my kidney for cash on the black market, recruited 8 extremely creative friends and together we put on a huge 1 year-old party for my daughter that made the ones from Cookie Magazine look like a get-together BBQ with leftovers (I’m never doing that again…) This year, we invited about 90 less people and did a simple, low-key party at Gymboree (Play & Music). It was great! 14 kids under 5 and their parents had a ball playing on the equipment, making music, dancing, singing, face-painting (boys called them “tattoos”), and running around under the parachute – perfect for kids this age.
The only drawback was the entire event was only 2 hours long so we didn’t have time to open presents (we had a no-gift party last year) other than that, success!

Harry Potter Rocked The Casbah
Ever since the job started summer hours on Fridays (out by 1), I feel like a normal person again. The wife and I actually get to see movies once more since our daughter was born. This week it was Harry Potter – which by the way, was great. I know the movie leaves out a lot of the book, but if they made that movie this thing would have been 8 hours long. For what it is, they did an excellent job, especially the effects at the end and professor Umbridge’s office (plates on the walls – nice touch!) The only weird part is seeing how big the kids have grown. Ron is looking more like a 50 year-old alcoholic while the others look like normal teenagers.

Planning My Daughters’ ‘Numero 2’ Birthday Party - Scaled Down (Without The Elvis Impersonator)

My daughter will be 2 soon (when did she get so old!?)

I can’t even believe its been nearly a year since her 1st, 10o guests birthday extravaganza (read about it here .) This time last year I was trying to decide whether the impersonator should dress as Blue Hawaii Elvis or Las Vegas Jumpsuit Elvis. I chose 'jumpsuit' because at the time my daughter started getting into that shiny things that sing stage. It didn’t matter though, she was still afraid of Elvis (maybe it was that violent shakin' ..)

People have been asking me “Hey! Crazy-insane “new dad” – what are you planning for #2? Tom Jones and live monkeys with water guns?” To them I answer, “That’s a good idea. I’ve always liked monkeys, especially armed ones” But in reality, I’m never doing that again.
When you hear about parents who've gone too far with their kids' party, well guess what? I was one of them (and the wife just sat back and watched me.) It was fun and memorable, but in reality my daughter didn’t know what was happening. It didn’t need to be that big.
The next big party I throw for her will be her wedding - in maybe 24.2 years to somebody I approve of and who isn’t a football/basketball/table tennis player, Elvis impersonator, drug/car dealer, multi-level marketing anything, aspiring race car driver, or actor (the list keep growing....daily.)

This year we’re planning a small 2-hour stint at our Gymboree with about 4 or 5 of her (non-cranky) friends she sees on a regular basis (asks for them by name all the time) and their parents, and maybe (still not entirely sure) a few family members with little ones under 5. The family can get a little weird if they know another family member was invited to something and not them (I can just hear it now “Why wasn’t I invited?!? and then my response "Save the DRAMA for yo' MAMA!" *grrrr*...then run away.)

I know the "big 2" birthday plans aren’t very glamorous and some family and friends will be disappointed about not getting invited. But I have to remember that these parties aren’t about me, the wife, and our friends. They’re about a little girl who gets nervous with too many adults around staring at her to perform when all she wants to do is run around and play with other kids.

But when it’s MY birthday, when then – start the disco music, send in the monkeys and let that chest hair breathe...!