Happy Birthday to you, Darius!

On Saturday morning, we had Darius playing in the living room area while Catherine and I continued our much needed rest in the bedroom. At one juncture, he suddenly walked into our room with an item in each of his hands.

As we took a closer look at them, we realised they were two big plastic food containers which we had kept from the mini buffet during Darius’ first birthday celebration, in case we needed to use them in the future. Seeing these containers, it reminded us that it had already been a year since his birthday. How time flies indeed!

So what a coincidence it was for Darius to have taken out these containers from the cabinets, since we were intending to celebrate his 2nd birthday over dinner that day (his actual birthday will be on this Thursday) at my parents’ house. Since we would be packing some food stuff along to their place, these food containers would come in very handy. Strangely, he had never bothered himself with the food containers despite him opening and closing those kitchen cabinets very frequently over the past year. Was he trying to tell us something? Guess I am thinking too much… ^^|

Anyway, we decided not to hold his birthday celebration at our house this year, one of the reasons due to the increased amount of tidying work that had to be done (many more toys and stuff than a year ago). It would also be more convenient for my parents since they won’t have to specially travel over to our place for the celebration.

As the late afternoon approached, a heavy downpour came down but fortunately it stopped when it was time for us to leave for my parents’ house. We called a cab and arrived at their place soon after. I dropped Catherine and Darius off while I continued the cab journey to a nearby neighbourhood mall to pick up our pre-ordered cake and also to buy some food stuff for the dinner.

As my mum had offered to cook some dishes too, I would only be getting another two dishes from the ‘Zhi Cha’ (Chinese Seafood) stall at a coffee shop. I placed my orders and left the containers with them before heading over to the confectionary shop for the cake.

I had already pre-ordered the cake a few days back so I would only be footing the rest of the payment and picking it up that day. Out of the many designs they provided in their catalogue, I had chosen one with trains on it since Darius has been very interested with them lately, besides his toy cars and buses. As the lady showed me the final product, I was glad that the cake had turned out well and the chinese characters depicting Darius, Happy Birthday were nicely written too.

With that, I carried the cake and picked up the dishes I ordered from the stall before heading back to my parents’ house. In my absence, Darius was playing with the toy trains he found at my parents’ house while waiting for my return.

"When is daddy coming back?"

There was quite a spread of food on the dinner table, thanks to my mum for preparing most of the dishes such as fried fishballs and chicken wings. We then sat around the table and had our fills.

Time to tuck in!

Throughout our stay, the kids (Darius and my two nephews) had been busying themselves by playing and running around the house. It’s not often that all three of them would be together at my parents’ house so their presence and laughter helped bring out the celebratory mood. This further affirmed that we had made the right decision to hold Darius’ birthday celebration there. I’m sure my parents would have enjoyed the buzz too.

After dinner, my sister handed a party hat to me so I could put it on for the birthday boy. As expected, he didn’t like having something on his head and showed his discomfort by trying to take it down persistently. Of course we didn’t want to spoil his mood so did not force him to wear it in the end. ^^

"I don't want to wear this..."

When it was time to cut the cake, all of us gathered round the dinner table as I lighted up the two candles depicting his age. I also handed our two digital cameras to my brother and brother-in-law so they could help to capture photos and videos of the precious moment respectively.

Back at our house earlier that day, I’ve ‘warmed up’ Darius by singing the Happy Birthday song to him. Each time, he would be clapping his hands merrily, giving out a shout somewhere in the middle (probably he was mimicking what the other kids in his cc did when they were celebrating birthdays) before replying ‘Yes’ when his name was mentioned in the song (he typically acknowledges his name this way which I believed was learnt from his school’s daily Good Morning song). ^^

However, when my family members started singing him the birthday song as we clapped, Darius was stunned and kept silent throughout the song, despite us encouraging him to clap along etc. He must have been dumbstruck by the crowd of people singing to him while he becoming the centerstage of the celebration all of a sudden. o_0|

After  the song ended, we started to blow the candles before preparing to cut the cake. Darius became uncooperative at this point, when we wanted him to hold the plastic knife for the cake cutting together. We gave up persuading him after a while, not wanting to spoil the celebratory mood.

We had ordered a blackforest flavoured cake (Catherine’s favourite!) and we made sure Darius had a slice of the cake too. He started enjoying cakes recently so he had no problem finishing up most of that slice, instead needing us to limit his intake so that he won’t eat too much and become too full while close to his bedtime.

He just couldn't stop eating! ^^|

We stayed on for an hour or so there before bidding goodbye to all so Darius could have his rest. As for his birthday gifts, except for my brother’s books, we had received ang baos (red packets) from our family members and we would be depositing them into his savings account.

Checking out his birthday presents

And so that ended an evening of fun and laughter in our simple celebration prepared for Darius. We sure hope he had enjoyed himself!

Note: As I was publishing this post, it’s only an hour or so before his actual birthday on 15th July. So here’s wishing our dearest Darius a Happy 2nd Birthday! ^^

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