fourteen days of celebration

If you know Jason at all, you know how much he loves to party. You know how much he loves to plan and execute festive occasions. You know how much he loves to dream up party decor, shop for gifts, bake celebratory desserts, and organize fun activities.

If you know Jason at all, you know how the entire above paragraph is written tongue-in-cheek at best and is more accurately just a downright lie.

Jason is seriously excellent at executing tasks. He is truly top notch when it comes to organizing and project prep. Plus, underneath his chill, un-hyped exterior, he is a pretty entertaining and fun fellow. But applying those characteristics to festivities is a big no go for him. I think it ranks up there in his top five list of Things I Never Want to Be Responsible For.

And yet, here we are, a mere two-ish weeks away from his grand moment of the year: The Fourteen Days of Celebration. And this year, it's even bigger than ever [woo 🎉]. 

Here's the agenda:

• Actual birth day of Boo, baby numero cinco
• Fourth birthday for Sebastian
• Second birthday for Eli
• Fifteenth wedding anniversary
• Mother's Day

All squeezed into a two-ish week period. Oof.

For Boo's birth, obviously there is not much that Jason needs to do to prepare, unless you count all of the random tasks and projects I come up with at the last moment. But it is still a pretty big life event, and there is some emotional prep work and some mental "get ready for the sleep deprivation" prep for him. But no festivities to organize. So I think it will be a nice soft opening for his Fourteen Days of Celebration.

Normally I handle the boys' birthday prep, but with this being a New Baby year and our hopes being that I will be snuggling a squishy babe/chilling in postpartum euphoria by the time May 1st/2nd [the two birthdays] rolls around... I have mentally relinquished the birthday-ing execution to Jason. He knows this, but I'm not sure he truly knows this, if you know what I mean. Sebastian is old enough this year to actually look forward to his birthday and he is oh so excited for its arrival and I want it to be everything he's imagining. Birthday theme: All Things Fish. [If Boo decides to be inconveniently and rudely late and wants to crash a brother's birthday, this will obviously change all the plans 😄] 

Fifteen years of marriage is LEGIT. That's a decade and a half of living life with my best friend. The best years of my life, I tell you. We generally do not do much for anniversaries, so there honestly isn't a lot of pressure on Jason, but anniversary fifteen seems like we should do something out of the ordinary, really party it up low-key style. But there will be a newborn. And four other children. So... gotta keep things realistic. [Back when we were young and naive, we declared a just-the-two-of-us cruise for our fifteenth... alas.]

And lastly, there is Mother's Day. It will be my ninth Mother's Day and my first one as a mama of five ❤️ Again, there are usually very low expectations for any celebration of this holiday, but undoubtedly Jason will feel compelled to do something outside of normal day things. Once I remind him of the date, that is 😉

All in all, with how we do celebrations/holidays/anniversaries, it is not that much to pile on Jason's plate 😄 But it will feel like a lot to one who finds festivity planning stressful and overwhelming. By the time he wraps up Mother's Day, he will either be a pro at throwing celebrations or he will be checking out of all celebrations for the rest of the year. I'll keep you updated.

[And just for the record, regardless of how much or little pomp and circumstance there is, I'm greatly looking forward to this particular Fourteen Days of Celebration. It will be the best of times with the best family of seven.]

i love him immensely.