Living inside a pressure cooker

Okay, life isn't that stressful right now, but I am feeling a lot of pressure. Pressure you ask? Yes, pressure to have a fabulous first birthday party for little c. As a former event planner and lover of themed parties, I feel as if I need to kick things up a notch and throw little c the best dang party that anyone has ever attended. And for the record, no one is putting the pressure on me except for me.

I have started losing sleep over it. Really and truly. I tell myself that if I was a really good Mom, I'd have had the theme already picked out and planned for 6 months ago. Party hats would already be made, a Happy Birthday Cohen bunting would have been sewn, invitations already received, first birthday shirt made, my sister finalizing the cake plans, and the dessert buffet all set to go. But here we are 3 weeks away from the big event and I've got nothing. Nothing at all. No theme to start the wheels in motion. Not even a poem for the invite.

Can I tell you how hard it is to plan a first birthday party at the same time as trying to pull Christmas together? It's not easy. I'm sure some of you reading this know from experience.

I do have hope that I will come to my senses and realize that the first birthday is about celebrating that little life that you hoped for for so long. It will be great even if there is a cake purchased from Costco and little c shows up wearing nothing but a diaper and a paper hat purchased from the dollar store because we will be with family and friends and we will be rejoicing the mere existence of Cohen Gray Hancock.

And so while I feel like I'll be in the pressure cooker for a little while longer, I think I'm going to pop the lid open, take a deep breath and enjoy these photos of my little almost-one-year-old in a few of his cool hats.