The BIG Day

My precious little birthday boy!!!

Brodster looked like this on the morning of his first birthday.  First shot!


I had wanted his actual day to be special.  I know that probably sounds silly since he's one, but nonetheless I did.  Greg had to work, so it was just going to be me and Brody.  Our Sunday school class has a weekly play date.  It was a splash pad day and it fell on Brody's birthday.  We decided that would be something fun and special to do. 


Eating lunch al fresco.

He really does like this...I promise! 

When we got home, Brody played with his new straw cup for awhile.  Then I experienced an epic mommy fail.  A spanking on his birthday!  Brody was being SO naught during his diaper change before his nap.  I mean seriously naughty.  He knew he was being naughty too because he kept laughing every time I told him "no".  It was no kinda good.  Little hands in poop, body flopping everywhere.  So, he got a little swat on his bottom.  The first one was too soft because he started really laughing.  So, I did it again a little bit harder.  This time...tears.  I felt like it was a total epic mommy failure, but I knew he totally understood what he was doing was wrong.  I just finished reading the book Shepherding A Child's Heart and felt a little spanking was necessary although I hate that it was on his birthday.  Something I feel like I will sadly always remember even though I know he won't.  Oh, the hard, not-so-fun times of being a mom.  I would totally recommend the book.  It's not the easy way to parent, but I do believe it's the godly way. 


 

When Brody woke up from his nap, Daddy came home and Brody opened the few presents he had from us.  He had opened all the other presents at his party, but I had wanted to save ours for the actual day.




 

 

Then I had epic mommy failure #2 of the day.  Remember I had wanted Brody's birthday to be special?  Well, I thought when Greg came home from work it would be great fun for Brody to go to a bounce place called Monkey Joe's.  I had looked at their website and asked a friend and it seemed like it should be age appropriate.  They had small bounce houses for the little ones, so Brody wasn't going to get trampled.  We were allowed to go into the bounce house with him, so I felt it would be safe.  We get there and pretty much from the moments we walked in, Brody was unsure of the place.  I didn't really notice because I was filling out the forms and Greg was holding him, but I soon realized Brody was doing a little baby freak out.  We got into the bounce house and he just clung to one of us.  He really didn't even want Greg.  He wanted his mommy.  His little fingers dug into my arm saying, "mommy, please don't put me down".  We tried our best for about 15 minutes.  We were able to put him down (finally) but he just sat there looking at us as if we had lost our ever loving minds.  He was seriously frozen.  We decided to count our six bucks as a loss and left.  Brody was so happy to be out of there.  Once we got in the car, he thoroughly enjoyed playing with my sunglasses.  Thankfully, he didn't look completely scarred for life.



 



 

When we got home, Granna came over for dinner (Grandad had a business dinner).  It made dinner a bit more special than any other Wednesday night, so that was good.  And we got a few more shots of the birthday boy on his BIG day!