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The first birthday is a day for the parents. We watched our little one grow from a clueless baby to an aware and more mature human. Even the city council knows it’s a big deal and gave me a rubber ducky set with a note that said congrats on surviving one year.

The first birthday party is definitely all about the parents. I planned Thea’s 1 year party for months, spending hours scrolling through Pinterest and Google. I collected her baby food jars from 7 months onwards, started making large colourful circles at 10 months, bought balloons, gifts and stuff early, found a fantastic caterer and mentally redecorated the hall a million times in the days leading up to the party.

The theme was about adventure, travel, colour and love. We set up a canvas with Thea’s pic and asked everyone to place their thumbprint on the canvas. We decorated the halls with colourful balloons, pinwheels, circles, ribbons, a home made ‘Happy Birthday Thea’ banner, paper planes, paper boats and flowers as centerpieces on each table. We wrote adventure quotes from children’s books on a huge white sheet and hung that as the backdrop for the cake table. We had three cakes of different flavours. Food was mini meals from around the world and we had a few tables laid out if guests wanted to sit down.

I wanted a lot more on the day and probably just over half of what I had planned happened. But I am so fantastically happy about how well the day went. The food was great, the décor was classy, the vibe was chilled, family and friends had fun, everything went smoothly, Thea was an absolute sweetheart, went to everyone and didn’t fuss at all. The caterers cleaned up after themselves and we hired someone to help clean the hall afterwards. Bam! My event, I QC’ed all the details of the party and it turned out to be an awesome party done with minimal fuss.

I am so proud of myself and grateful to everyone who helped make it a wonderful day.

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Moms have a tendency to judge each other on our parenting skills. Sometimes there is no way to win this – if your kid is having a tantrum in public its because you are not disciplining him. But if you smack the kid then you are a bad parent. If you give in then you are a bad parent. If you ignore him you are a bad parent. If you take out your phone to record the tantrum for his 21^st party you are a bad parent. If you scratch your bum and then your head you are a bad parent. So either way, no matter what you do, someone will disagree with you (and mentally call you a bad parent).

When we were travelling from Thailand recently, there were a number of young ones in the cabin with us. As the plane took off, the babies’ distress level went up and soon they were all screaming.

Each parent had their own bag of tricks to calm their baby down.. and one set of parents had a method that I didn’t agree with. I thought ‘this is bad parenting and they are not putting in any effort and its bad for the kid’. I became very self-righteous and was mentally berating them when I hit my wisdom cloud. Who am I to judge them for what they were doing? They were doing what works for them and it keeps their kid calm, so who cares?

So all you parents with your bag of tricks – go ahead and use them on your kids. And if someone gets their nose out of joint because of you, then, well, whatever.

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We were at a get-together and a friend introduced me to another lady she had recently met. “Anpu, this is Name and Name, this is Anpu. Name has two boys, Marcus and Isaac. Anpu has this little Thea”.

“Hello, nice to meet you” goes around within our little circle. Pause. My mind is a blank as I try and think of something to say. “I have a cousin called Marcus”, I say. Name nods and smiles. Now my mind is racing. “How do you spell Isaac – is that I-S-A-A-C or K?” I mentally facepalm myself as my friend turns away and Name just says “C”.

Not even 10 seconds later I knew exactly what I should have said when we were first introduced. “Oh your son is so sweet. My daughter was playing with him and he didn’t seem to mind when she kept tapping him on the knee.” Or something way better than asking how to spell freaking names!

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Fellow mothers of young ones – currently the best thing and worst thing ever! They are the best things because I had someone to talk to about my pregnancy, someone to discuss and validate any new developments and feelings during the various trimesters. I could touch base with fellow mothers and mothers-to-be about baby purchases, learn about someone’s birth story and share the joys and pains of motherhood. Fellow mothers were a new source of information when I had any questions or issues about Thea. Fellow mothers are also not easily bored when I talk about What Thea Did Next.

On the downside, fellow mothers’ favourite topic of conversation is baby stuff. What Baby Did Next, What I Did With Baby, Baby This That And The Next Thing Baby.

I went to the library baby book reading session once, which was basically an hour of someone reading a book and singing songs and the kids sang along. I didn’t know anyone so looked for a group to hang out with, using Thea as an icebreaker. The first group was talking about baby sleeping patterns. It wasn’t too interesting so I moved to the next group. They were talking about prams, so again, I moved on. This time I asked the lady if she came here often (haha!) and she said she had just moved into the northern suburbs area. I asked why she moved and she said it was for financial reasons and also space to raise a family. This was my cue to ask her about her baby, a cue I ignored and instead asked about the beach near her former suburb. She gave a vague answer and turned her back on me. She started talking baby stuff to the lady on the other side.

Fellow mothers are also so damn competitive! Underneath all the interest and companionship is a mother waiting to turn the spotlight on to their little one. Honestly, What Thea Did Next is not a challenge to be upped at every point. What Thea Did Next is 30% bragging and 70% making conversation because I am sorely lacking in social skills and the ability to wittily manipulate the English language.