Focused on his birthday

Yesterday was Wonder Boy’s birthday.

My wonderful, loving, friendly, smart, caring son’s third birthday.

I tiptoed into his room and sang him Happy Birthday, giggling as he pulled the blanket over his head and continued sleeping, preserving the moment on my phone to send to Mr. Wonder.

He didn’t wake up until the second round.

We had breakfast and by the end of his bananas and waffles his birthday shirt was already dirty.

I really can’t win with breakfast- if I feed him then dress him he is never hungry, dress than feed him he’s already dirty.

I grabbed the bags full of preschool snacks in honor of his day and drove him to school, him beaming with excitement.

Then I came home, my head full of ideas for a birthday post, the one I had been thinking of for days.

But first, I clicked over to Facebook and found out horrible news.

I didn’t know what to do.

First I cried.

Then I looked at the picture I was about to put on Facebook and smiled in spite of it.

It made me happy.

But how could I be happy at that moment?

I didn’t post it.

Then I was mad, because I felt that sharing my happiness would be wrong.

Then I was confused.

I had plans to do, things to write, and now I had a cloud looming in front of me, over the keyboard.

I felt like it would be rude to carry on like I was supposed to.

How could I post about how happy and proud I was, my pride and joy across the page when someone who would have loved to see the post was gone.

I waited.

I chose to focus on one instead of the other.

I stepped away.

I picked him up after preschool and went to lunch with my parents and handed him balloons with the number ’3′.

I laughed when he gravely stopped our favorite waitress and told her not to sing because I had already sung the song for him.

He opened presents and played with them until I told him it was naptime.

He agreed.

Some of the presents accompanied him upstairs.

I looked at Facebook, sent messages.

I made frosting.

I started the cake.

I played with him until Daddy came home and then shook my head over the pile of Hot Wheels that came out of a giant gift bag I finished dinner while stealthily taking the cake out of the oven and setting to cool over there, where Wonder Boy wouldn’t see it.

At least Daddy also got something to put them in too.

I checked Facebook, looked at Twitter, answered an email.

He didn’t eat the chicken until Daddy started to.

The fries, his favorite food ever, were long gone, and the ketchup besides it had een dipped into by small fingers and eagerly licked off.

I kicked them out for a few minutes at our playground while I quickly iced the cake and put sprinkles on top because I didn’t even think to put color in the frosting and probably should have.

We ate dinner.

We lit candles.

We sang.

We celebrated.

I was happy, and proud.

His day was wonderful.

That was most important to me.

His birthday was a happy one, even if it wasn’t a completely happy day for me.

 Yesterday morning Sidney, my BlogHer ’11 drinking buddy, my friend and partner at SoCal Lady Bloggers and the witty woman behind My Mother-in-Law Is Still Sitting Between Us passed away.