Gratitude: Kid Birthday Parties Are Easier Than Labor

My dear friend Randy Hyde has been working on a happiness project that started with his 30 Day Experiment and has evolved into a 545 mile bike ride. He started it after seeing Shawn Anchor's TED Talk where he shares five daily tasks for finding happiness. You'll have to check out Randy's blog for all of the tasks, but one of them is identifying three things you're grateful for. This is one of the easier of the five for me, and after Kiara's second birthday I was feeling particularly grateful.

Kiara gets a kiss from Tavi, and a suburn...

#1 David and I survived the baby part.

Kiara has turned two and we have officially negotiated our first two years as new parents with varying degrees of success. Breastfeeding and sleep training are a distant memory and now it's terrible two toddler tantrums. Yep. Those are so much better than sore nipples and sleep deprivation. Grateful.

#2 Kiara is an extremely nice kid.

She played with her friends at her birthday party, and even though her mom forgot to apply sunscreen, she barely complained about her sunburn. Grateful.

Note to self:
Cupcakes means you don't need a cake.

#3 Planning a birthday party is so much better than going into labor.

Planning kid birthday parties isn't easy. There is the food and the cake and entertainment. There are the comparisons I cannot help myself from making to the wide variety of friend birthday celebrations we attend. We tried to keep it simple, but in the end it was still a lot of work. But I wouldn't trade this for labor. Nope. So much easier. Grateful.

If anyone has any hints for simple kid parties, David and I would love to hear them.