JACOB'S 9TH BIRTHDAY

My mom.

As the title of this posts explains, today was Jacob's 9th birthday.  It's hard for either of us to think about how fast he's growing up.  But birthday parties have always been an issue for Jacob his whole life, so we have learned to expect some rough behaviour whenever the family gets together.

There was about a dozen people in total at my mom's house, who was nice enough to let us have the party there.  Jacob however, was the only child in attendance.  We've tried to have a group of kids at a birthday before, but the lack of control really seems to set Jacob off.  In the past, we've also sent goodies to school for Jacob to share with his classmates, just to make Jacob feel closer to kids his own age, but the school won't let parents can't do that anymore.  So we feel that it's easier to have only family at birthdays.

Jacob was having a great time during dinner and talking with everyone, which was nice to see.  But then we made a huge miscalculation.  Jacob in the past has had behaviour issues after consuming blue food colouring, which we first noticed when he had Smarties.  He would go crazy to the point that we could do nothing but let the stuff run it's course.  And what colour frosting was on his birthday cake?  Yep.  Blue.

How could I have missed the blue frosting?  By the time it clicked in my head, it was too late.  Jacob had a huge piece of cake and then, boom.  His behaviour took a huge turn for the worse.  He began yelling and stomping around grandma's house like a bull.  But mom and I did our best to stay at the party in spite of the drama.  He didn't really calm at all, even after a full hour.  We then noticed that Jacob looked sad due to his lack of control.  So we decided to exit the party and return home.

In the end, it was a pretty good birthday.  We spent almost 3 hours at my mom's which is way longer than normal.  We did ask Jacob to spend some time in his room due to his behaviour just to ensure he fully unwound.  He's fine now to the point that it's like nothing happened.  No trace of anger or anything.  Now I must confess, there's one thing I hate about Jacob's birthdays.  Putting together all the toys.

Jacob with his aunt (left) and nana.