Son’s birthday means Optimus and dryness

A year ago, my then toddler’s third birthday party was certainly a memorable day, if not exactly fun-filled and enjoyable. The local Borough Gym, which I had rented for his party, flooded the day of the event. Since it was a weekend, no one contacted me about the problem and I only discovered the new swampland the Borough was the proud owner of an hour prior to the party, when I was greeted with fire trucks and police cars upon my arrival to the intended party location.

One minor panic attack later at the thought of the over thirty small attendees soon to be arriving to what was now a swimming pool with basketball hoops, and my wonderful and phenomenal local church offered up their basement as a party substitute.

The party was quickly relocated, notes were posted at the Borough Gym announcing the change in plans, and it went off without a hitch. Notwithstanding my nine-month olds sudden attack of the flu (part of which manifested itself on the floor of the church basement in the middle of “Pin The Tail on the Donkey”) and my rather, um, intense reaction to my cheerful husband’s phone call from Iraq in the midst of the festivities. To his detriment, he had no clue how my day had been going and his upbeat, “I bet our son and you are just enjoying every minute of the gym about now” was not well received, to say the least.

On the plus side, my now much better educated husband begins every single conversation with, “How is your day going?” before making any assumptions whatsoever.

He’s a quick learner.

This year was much better by far.

The baby, now almost two years old, opted to remain healthy for the entire day. My birthday boy, now four years old, was the ecstatic recipient of a Transformers-themed party.

The Borough Gym, (yes, I rented it again) was dry and landlocked for the entire day (not counting that incident with the apple juice).

To be honest, I did nervously go by twice the day before the party just to make sure I would not need to bring floatation devices this year. And there were dozens of wild, energetic, thrilled and excitable children present who had free range of the gym to be, well, wild, energetic, thrilled and excitable.

But the best part of all was that my husband was able to be here this year to experience all this for himself.

Our son turned four last weekend, and this is only the second birthday that his daddy has been physically present for. On our son’s first birthday, daddy was doing an unaccompanied tour of Korea and for his third, he in was in the Middle East. This was by far a preferable location in my mind, although by the end of the party, surrounded by shrieking toddlers and preschoolers, my dazed and confused husband was heard to mutter something to the opposite in a befuddled voice.

After the highly successful and dry (I did mention the gym was dry this year, didn’t I?) birthday party, we spent the next six hours at home trying to open my son’s new toys. I state “trying to open” because there are still two toys that I firmly believe are going to require a chainsaw and a blowtorch to get out of their plastic packaging. Three toys necessitated my husband breaking out his tool box for various instruments that I freely admit I have no clue as to what they are, but that’s what makes having him home all the better. Because if it were just me, those toys would still be in their original plastic coatings on my son’s 20th birthday.

So, after the toys were removed from their protective armor, the next several hours until bed were punctuated by frustrated screams, yells and howls as the Transformer toys my son received were revealed to be a lot harder to transform than originally anticipated.

Finally, in frustration, I simply took the toys away from my husband and promised him that our son would show him how they work the next morning when our newly turned four-year old boy woke up.

It was, in my opinion, a perfect day.

Even my husband agreed, after finally admitting that Optimus Prime was smarter than he was.

Tiffany Horvath is the mother of two and the stepmother of one. Her husband, Drew, was deployed to Iraq and returned home in December. She writes every Sunday abut life at home as a wife and mother.