I Suck At Birthday Parties

On Sunday, my niece (Kaleigh) had a birthday party. Now I suck at birthday parties. This year, however, things were different. In the past, Kaleigh had themed parties. There was a dress up party... and most recently there was a pajama party. For the birthday party in honor of her sixth birthday this year, Kaleigh simply had... just a regular party.

It also turns out that Kaleigh's birthday party was the first party that our newborn daughter (Briana) attended. For anyone curious, Briana is a little over a month old. And with any newborn in attendance at a family gathering, that newborn will get a lot of attention. I guess it's just the way things are. People like newborns... unless the newborns are are ugly. (And although I may be biased, I don't think my newborn is ugly. Stinky? At times, yes. Ugly? No.)

Truth be told, I was a little hesitant to bring Briana to Kaleigh's party because of the whole newborn attention thing. I didn't want Briana to steal Kaleigh's thunder. After all, it was Kaleigh's birthday. The party should be about Kaleigh, not that Kaleigh would even have minded. Kaleigh was too busy running around playing with her other able-bodied cousins.

And sure enough, a lot of people wanted to hold and cuddle with Briana at the party. For me, I thought that was great because Briana is such the cuddle bug. The more people who want to hold her... the better... at least for now. I'm sure eventually she'll have to stop with the whole cuddling thing.

It seemed like everyone held her at one point during the party. Karen's mother, my favorite sister-in-law (Janine), Karen's cousin from Lowell (Karlene)... which of course means that there is a lot to love about Lowell, Karlene's husband (Tommy), Janine's BFF (Gretchen), my favorite brother-in-law's (PJ) mother all held her. Even Kaleigh and her two cousins took a turn holding her. Interestingly enough, Kaleigh's other aunt (Nikki) even held her.

It turns out, Briana seemed tiny to Nikki because her children (Kaleigh's cousins) were both over 10 pounds when they were born. So like my friend (Pam), her children never had to wear newborn clothes. I find that pretty interesting. Nikki, by the way, was quite the social butterfly at Kaleigh's party. Generally, whenever I see Nikki, she doesn't say a peep. It was actually quite nice to have a conversation with her.

All in all, it was a good party. Briana actually did very well with being passed from person to person. She didn't fuss too much. I also thought it was great because it gave me a little break for a little while. As for the party itself, I think Kaleigh had a good time. In true Uncle Mike fashion, I got to pick her up off the ground and turn her completely upside down. It was fun.