It's coming around again

Am I the only parent out there that hates kid's birthday parties? They're so awkward. Parents come over and either drop their kids off (in which case they're always awful, bratty kids and you're praying their parents will be there any minute) or they hang out for the entire party, trying to make conversation while all I can think about is what's in the liqueur cabinet ("I still have stuff to make a cosmotini, right? I swear I at least have the ingredients for a double Mai Tai. No...that mom over there looks like she'd be totally offended if I broke out a bottle right now").

Adam's birthday is almost here and this year it's a Wall-E party complete with games, decorations and all the party fixings. I love being able to give my kids the birthday parties I always wished I'd had as a kid. There's something so special about watching their faces while they laugh with their friends and get to be the most important person of the day. It makes me truly happy in a way that not a lot of other things in life can. I capture those moments and save them, tuck them away in a place available when I JUST GOT HOME AND YES I'M STARTING DINNER.
I can still remember the look on Karina's face when she broke through her first pinata at her 3rd birthday party, candy showering her, in this adorable little blue and white dress, her hair pulled up in a ponytail with her wispy golden curls framing her cheeks. The smile she had when she saw not most, but ALL of her friends arriving at the park for her 7th birthday party. Adam's first birthday, frosting covering his entire face - and how he wouldn't put down the ducky that he still has on his bed.
This year will be the same, watching Adam star in his own show. Playing Pin the Bolt on Wall-E, wearing his Birthday Boy medal, pulling the ribbons from the Wall-E pinata (even pinatas have gotten less violent, notice that?), eating cake with his favorite friends.
And I will tuck away those special moments - those moments when he doesn't know I'm watching him smile at his friend Grace (who is only invited because she's a tomboy but don't think I don't notice that he blushes every time he says her name...), when he cuts his cake and sticks his hand in the frosting "accidentally", when he blows out the candles and his expressive eyebrows do that thing where they furrow in the middle because he wants to get all 8 blown out.

I'm just stopping at the liqueur store first.