Remember those times when you had birthdays in school and your mom sends a cake and a clown and a whole hoopla?

YEAH ME NEITHER!!!

Who does that?! I never had birthdays in school when I was younger… or maybe I just can’t remember.

But mann… birthdays nowadays are no joke. When they turn 1, they obviously have to have a party of 200 people in a ballroom somewhere. When they turn 10, you obviously need to get ponies and helicopter rides… Hahah. No but seriously, I was sending Daniel to school and the teacher pulled me aside, “So Puan Vivy, when will you be doing Daniel’s birthday walk?”

A birthday what?

“You mean, like bring a birthday cake for him and friends?”

“Umm… and the whole presentation of Daniel!”

A presentation of Daniel… I swear I was silent for 2 seconds because I was processing all this… like present him to his friends, like “Here, I present to you Daniel, enjoy…”???

“Presentation meaning…?” I asked the teacher, cheeks going red because I felt like a bad parent not knowing this.

“Oh you know, like show us the day he was born, and maybe pictures of him traveling. And just tell some stories about Daniel to his friends.”

Oh wow. I was already visioning my schedule this week and about to have a panic attack. I had to be in Paris for 3 days (4.5 days including travel), then it was Singapore for work, then I had to co-host an open house at my inlaws this weekend…Ok ok don’t panic,  you can do this. Just drag some photos into a folder and you can do a slideshow with your laptop.

As if she read my mind…

“Oh, some parents do it on a laptop, but that’s not very fun…”

Dang. It. She. Is. Psychic.

“Of course of course! I’ll sort it out. Is Monday ok?” I gulped.

“Certainly, Puan Vivy. Oh, do you want the contact for Mr. Bubbleman?”

Who the heck…

“Of course, please send me the contact! How can we forget Mr. Bubbleman,” I laughed nervously.

WHO?!!

As soon as I got in the car, I was speed-dialling Iman. God bless her. She and Dada helped me so much with the party packs (oh you have to give party packs, all the moms there give party packs). We decided to go for animal theme because well duh it’s Daniel. Inside the party pack, Dada made (yes, made!) a colouring book of animals and the front says “Meet Daniel’s Favourite Animals” – it’s super cute, colour pencils and some toy animals. I would have put some Vitagen or Twisties or gummy bears in there but the teachers said strictly no food so boo. Then for the teachers, we did a personalised tumbler with their names on it and gave some cute dUCk notepads.

Cake?!!! Crap, cake… thank God for Asma’. Seriously, you need to find a friend who can bake, pronto. Don’t take Asma’, she’s mine. Haha.

As for Daniel’s life presentation, I already had it in my head the storyline. I just needed to print the photos and buy some manila cards to paste them on. I only had Sunday to do it so we were rushing doing all these things, going through 3 different hard drives to look for old photos, printing the photos, going to 3 different places to get manila cards (Why are they so hard to find?!!) and at midnight when kids were asleep, Dean and I were on the floor pasting photos and drawing fish and hearts on them. Haha.

Oh, we called Mr. Bubbleman but he was fully booked. Like seriously, if you ever need a career change…. So anyway, we got a magician instead to perform for Daniel and his friends. He was amazing, we love him. (Charleston The Magician: his agent’s name is Adrian 012-8282372)

So on Monday, we came all prepared with our manila cards… kinda like going to school and presenting for show and tell or something haha. Brought back memories for sure. I thought I did so well! I was like “Daniel has a sister! Do any of you have sisters or brothers?” Then the whole room went “YES I DO I HAVE A SISTER. I HAVE TWO BROTHERS BLA BLA.” and when I asked “Daniel loves animals. Do any of you like animals too?”, the whole room went “I LOVE ZEBRAS. I LOVE MONKEYS. OOOO ELEPHANT!!” Ok guys calm down, I was just being polite. This is my presentation not yours, no need over. -___-” #kidstryingtostealmyspotlight

We cut the cake and then it was time to give out the party packs. Each child came up to Daniel to take it from him and the girls all gave him a hug. I had to lightly push them away like ok that’s enough, girl. No need hug so long.

OH JUST LOOK AT THAT HAPPY BOY.

-___-“

I swear inside he’s crying of happy tears. He’d better be.

Oh Daniel, you’re three already! Soon you’ll be 4, then 10, then 25, then you’ll be with some girl and marry her and forget all about me. I can’t take this!!! *cries blood* That night, I cuddled him to sleep so tight I think he got scared.

Gotta admit, going through the old photos and our memories together was pretty nice. Dean and I went awww at so many of the photos, so now I totally appreciate this birthday walk thingy. But I won’t be saying that if I have 6 kids and have to do this for all of them. So umm if this is not your thing, make sure you give birth during the summer holidays.