Now That's How You Throw A 3rd Birthday Party!

Well, we survived the 3rd birthday party. No meltdowns…from any of us! Including me!

I think I officially held my breath for 2 straight days. My anxiety for the actual party had really been building beforehand. I was scared that Cooper wouldn’t care about any of it. Or even worse, hit himself in the head. Sometimes, when he gets really stressed out, he will smack his head. It breaks my heart every time he does it. And he knows he will get a reaction so he will do it again. I think I prayed a million times that he wouldn’t do that during his party. So, I opted to do a really small party with just the grandparents and my sister.

On Friday, Cooper went to daycare where they had a small party for him. I had a lot of anxiety built up for this day. What if he still doesn’t get it? What if he won’t participate when they sing to him?

Well…the little stinker surprised us. According to his daycare, he wore his birthday hat all day, loved when they sang to him and enjoyed his cupcake.

Cooper also did one other thing that made my day, my month, my year! He is a member of the PBS kids club and gets an on-air greeting on his birthday. I really wanted him to get it. At 8 am we were in front of the TV and I told him that they were going to say his name. The announcer said 2 other names before “Cooper on Tischer Road.” Cooper looked right at us, pointed at the TV and said OH! and clapped his hands.” Yes, my heart exploded right then and there.

Our party was on Saturday. He went down for a great nap and was in a really good mood when he woke up. I had a ridiculous amount of balloons and decorations. As I like to say, “anything worth doing is worth overdoing!” I also had a little mommy guilt about not having a big party for him so I wanted to spoil him in other ways.

Cooper did really well during the party. His cousin who is 11 was there and they love each other. More than life.  He was only interested in his first present and not much after. And he loved his cake and the birthday song. He only hit his head one time the whole party. I call this a VICTORY!

One part that was tough was managing everyone’s emotions about Cooper. And also managing my emotions. I try to be really strong about it. I really try to put on a brave face. But people, especially the Grandma’s, can tell that I am really sad. And they will say things. Like, tell me how other kids have it worse. Or, how much he has improved. I’ll write more about this later.

My sadness really set in hard on Sunday. I can’t believe how far we have to go to catch up. I am worried that the mountain is too big. I see the differences in Cooper and Sawyer. I see the differences in babbling vs. talking vs. Cooper’s language.

Jamie and I had a heart-to-heart on Sunday afternoon and we both admitted that we don’t see a breakthrough in sight. As you can probably tell by my writing I have a lot of emotions about Cooper. My husband, not so much. He is very neutral about it all. Last night he finally said that he is devastated about it. That made it more real.

Saturday was a very happy day. We celebrated Super Cooper.  Sunday was a very sad day.