Granddaughter, Lydia, is 3 today and by time we talked with her this evening she finally knew that the answer to “how old are you?” was “3″ and NOT “2″! She was in rare form on the phone and as usual, all it took was an “I love you, Grammie” to absolutely melt my heart.
She celebrated by getting up at 6 a.m. just as her mom was getting on the treadmill thereby ditching Ralph’s workout plans. That’s motherhood for you. She took birthday cookies to school and got to choose the menu at home tonight which was ravioli topped off with the last bit of the Hello Kitty cake.
Ralph is one of those moms who believes that “less is more” so her kids don’t get the fancy-schmancy birthday blowouts at the play places where 50 of their closest friends come and bring enough toys to stock a Toys R Us during the holidays.
Looks like she learned from me because I always felt like the celebration should be family-centered until my girls were old enough to really appreciate a party with their peers. In fact, for several years, they were allowed to only invite as many friends as their age – 5 years old, you get 5 friends at your party. That stopped at about the age of 7!
But my girls did have summer birthdays so parties at the park were a big hit – all we needed were some bats, balls, drinks, cake and ice cream and it was a party.
So here’s to Lydia – she of the naturally curly ringlets, big brown expressive eyes, haven’t-met-a-stranger personality and smile that usually gets her whatever she wants.
And don’t forget that’s she’s also incredibly smart – after all, she’s a member of our family.
