As I stood on the dirt terrace, looking around me, I couldn’t quite believe it was real: We were hosting our daughter’s first birthday party, and not only was it in-person like pre-pandemic days, but there were easily 30 people there! It was both better than and not at all what I had expected.
Back when we lived in New York City, we went to friends’ one-year-old’s birthday party in Brooklyn. The balloons, the decorations, the cake were all perfect – as were the adult beverages, which I was enjoying every bubbly sip of – but it seemed almost like a waste. Would the child remember any of this?
Fast forward to being a mother, and now I get it. The one-year-old may get a photo souvenir (or 15 or 250, in today’s digital age) from the event, but – in my albeit very limited experience – that’s not what it’s about. At least not only.
One-year-old birthday parties are as much about parents surviving as they are about the child making it to his or her first birthday.
In my case, I was in fact celebrating three things: Our daughter, making it this far, and our tribe.
Celebrating Our Little Human
Seeing our daughter – let’s call her AZAC (those are her initials) – change and develop over this past year has been nothing short of magic. She had her ups and downs, mostly early day difficulties around breastfeeding and sleep-related challenges, but overall she’s a happy, mischievous, curious, food-loving little human.
Rediscovering the world through her eyes, going through the exercise of figuring out how to explain to her what a whale is or what rain is, has been fascinating. I hope it continues to be just so as she starts walking, talking, and all the other things to come.
Surviving the First Year of Parenthood
Parenthood may be a bit like entrepreneurship – no matter what anyone tells you, it’s not until you’ve experienced it yourself that you truly understand. Part of that is because if you did understand what it took, and what it would ask of you mentally, emotionally, and physically… I’m not sure anyone would do it! Same as starting a business, which is inevitably an odyssey.
It’s also overwhelming, because beyond keeping a tiny human alive and ideally thriving, as a mother you’re trying to relearn how to self-care now that you’re no longer your own top priority (you should find a way to still be your top priority, or maybe a close second, but realizing that and understanding how to achieve it takes time!).
As if that wasn’t enough, if you’re doing the whole parenting thing with your husband or partner, you’re also navigating their ups and downs, and figuring out how to still be a couple as well as the kind of parent you always wanted to be.
Celebrating the one year mark felt like I was toasting to us making it this far, our survival as parents but also as a couple of individuals whose lives are forever connected, and who are both still in the thick of evolving into their new identities.
It’s too soon to tell, but I’d like to think this first year was the hardest in this respect. (If you think or know otherwise, shhhh! Let me believe this for a little longer.)
Our Tribe / Community
When we set out to organize this party, we thought of inviting a few close friends and the few friends we have living nearby with kids. We ordered two medium cakes from a friend, expecting to have maybe 15 people come – and lots of leftover cake by design.
We ended up having 30 people big and small over, a real party! It turns out that over time, we had been building much more of a community than we had realized. This was a wonderful realization to have, and I relished every moment.
Fear not, there was still a lot of leftover cake.
So, while the party itself was a simple enough event – cake and drinks outside for two hours at the end of an otherwise unremarkable Saturday, to me, it was big in meaning. I came away with my heart full… and with an additional personal goal of making my own cakes for when AZAC turns two!*
*Yes, in many ways I’m a glutton for punishment (see what I did there?), but I can’t help it so instead of fighting it, I try to embrace the drive I have to keep improving, learning, evolving, and moving forward.