Last week we celebrated the last 1st Birthday in our household.

I was a mess. I can’t believe the baby years are already behind us.

To illustrate just how bad of a mess I was… I… I…

I…

… considered having another baby.

To clarify, there isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not overwhelmingly grateful to have any kids at all. But every day I’m also overwhelmed by taking care of 4 kids within 38 months of each other. I’m scrambling just to make the most of the years with them.

The older kids are getting to the age where they can understand some of my feelings. I was pretty sure I had three sets of sympathetic, knowing ears when I cried, “You really CAN’T be so big already!”

My oldest daughter tried to cheer me up. “Mama, I’ll let you hold one of my babies when I grow up.”

She’s amazingly intuitive for a four year old. I felt comforted.

My son is a little slower to catch on, but he piped up, “You can keep one of my toys!” Sweet.

It was my younger daughter who really cured the overwhelming nostalgia, though.

“MOM! You can put me back in your belly!”

Oh… my.

My husband has been pretty stressed out lately, with several things to wrap up here, heartbreaking cases, getting finances in order, and on and on. It was nice that he was able to be home for the baby’s first birthday party. I need those coveted evenings when he and the kids and I can hang out together.

The baby was ecstatic about his party, hyperactive child that he is. Here he is, hanging out with his stockinged foot on the table:

Can you guess what happened next?

Then he chowed down on a cupcake, which nearly put him to sleep.

And then he the kids opened his present.

I made cake pops again, in honor of the last 1st Birthday in our household. I’ll post about that later, maybe next week (sneak preview below). My younger daughter, the one who volunteered to be reborn, loves cake pops. She had her fill of them while I was making them, and eventually I denied her request for more. This didn’t go over well, and she hovered over the cake pops like a little bee, buzzing, “Pweezzz, can I have another cake pop, pweeezzz?”

I held firm, and her two-year-old brain was forced to do some scheming. “Mom, can you pwease go talk on the phone again?” Then she drop-kicked the kicker: “That way, I can pick out another cake pop!”

Very sly and crafty, that one. I have to watch, or she’ll sneak these things right by me.

And that would be sad. I’m stocking up on popcorn now, because I don’t want to miss one minute of any of this.