What a weekend this was!! In fact, what a week! I went from celebrating our little Yurko-Mae’s second birthday through groggy, exhausted but excited existence (Because when you’re THIS sleep deprived -tahnks Remy- that’s what it is: existence), spiralling through a stressful week of work, and mounting worry about Remy’s nutrition. Right through to a full on emotional break-down, that I then shared on IG – which I probably will discuss more with you. BUT, at another time, for with the support of my hubby and not to mention the stream of kind & supportive messages I received from our little IG community, I managed to pull myself up by the threads of my big girl panties, and got my ish together for my girl! And what a lovely day it was! (And the whole weekend crescendo’ed with us winning a South African Parenting Blog Award for 2019.)
It was absolutely lovely…and not in the way you might think;There were no pinteresty hand made décor pieces this time. There was no yummy centre piece birthday I baked myself. There were no clever,thoughtful thank-you party packs. In fact, there was not even a HINT of any sort of birthday craft activities that have become synonymous with our kiddy parties . There was none of that. And don’t get me wrong, I LOVE having all of that, I’m not one of those moms who find it taxing or stressful to plan and execute such parties. Nor do I ever do it in response to some sort of mom peer pressure. Nope! I do it because I honestly gain energy and satisfaction from it, because I have a passion for it…But what all that being said, passion or not, I knew if tried to do any of that in my current state I’d send myself over the edge. So by Thursday I had already decided there’d be none of that. So what commenced on that Saturday afternoon, was pure the rawest form of present over perfect.
I wanted to celebrate my fire cracker of daughter! My little Coconutty with the huge presence, who’s loaded with personality and steel. My girl with the loud, deep laugh, a character with zero room for negotiation. My most boisterous “cac aanvanger” , who also has the heart of gold, loves with abandon, and cares for her loved ones, with the same level of tenderness as the wild she carries in her being. She is one of our greatest paradoxes in our lives – her interesting mix of character. She keeps us on our toes, demands you to live in the now with her like no one can. Has a clear and strong connection to her little brother, Remy, who followed hot on her heels in the timeline of life. (Can you believe he even featured in HER unborn soul connection I did while she was in my womb – and parts of that session made no sense, until he was born. But more on that in a different post)
She has great affinity for her sisters, and whilst they were always close, she ties this little gang of siblings together in a beautiful way that cannot be imagined without her. Yuriko-Mae is such a delightful mix of all things extraordinary in this life, and it is an incredible gift to us to be able to celebrate her…
And not just because she is our Rainbow baby, but no doubt that her path into our lives holds great baring in how we walk the journey with her…
This year, her birthday celebration was extra sweet because she knew the day was about her. She understood what the excitement was about. In fact she had been SO excited for weeks in the build up to her day, that on the actual morning of her birthday, she woke up long before we could even make brekkie for her traditional birthday wake up. Girlfriend was ready and waiting for us…calling us even!
So in we went with morning voices, and she insisted Remy lays in the cot with her…
It was a balloon wake up, as is tradition…
Lucky charms saved mom’s butt for Birthday breakfast ?
And whilst the morning celebration was rushed due to school and work demands, the night time we made up for it….
KIDDING…the night time was just as chilled! 🙂 But girlfriend had us sing happy birthday SO many times, and we happily complied.
We had milktart…that only dad and Pax liked. The rest of us are not fans of that particular milk tart…but hey the candle blowing was still fun. Even though birthday girl doesn’t quite get when to blow – like wait for the end of the song, babe! 😉
The rest of the night was spent on the carpet with them playing kitchen restaurant, ignoring bedtime rules because that’s what birthdays are for, right?
Coco is a huge fan of Baby shark (as is the rest of the toddler community of the world), and I was seriously considering that as a theme because she’s absolutely nuts about it. Like never let coco DJ at your party unless youre ready to jam to Pink Fong’s babyshark alllll night long! Then we decided rainbow theme is more fitting, but as you know how it all went down, we had theme “nothing”, and were totally ok with that. So when Saturday arrived, we welcomed our loved ones into our home with wine, snacks and a whole lot of love.
It was great to be able to let go of the stresses & worries about Remy that were weighing me down for that short time to nejoy our family; watch Coco relish the attention – which was a far cry from previous times where she’d burst into tears at the mere sound of a hooray or loud singing.
Our family came in with beautiful energies, swooped up the babies and filled our home with love and a light, that I knew our home needed way more than a quiet and empty house for us to “recover” from the weeks of sleep deprivation.
What a lovely time celebrating our girl…
Such an adventure to walk this life with you Yuriko-Mae..and all the new perspectives we get to take on because of it! We love you SO!
Ah this looks so lovely. And from all your pics, you can tell that Yuriko-Mae is a bundle of energy and excitement 🙂 I was wondering why, when everybody was there, you didn’t just shut yourself in the room and sleep for like THREE HOURS, hahahaha. But of course I know that this type of thing energises you. Out of interest, how did you come up with all your children’s names?!