Andrew's 2nd Birthday

Last week was Andrew's 2nd birthday. His birthday was Tuesday, and we had a big family birthday party planned for him on Saturday. Luke and I had expected Andrew to relish being the center of attention, opening his presents and, of course, eating his birthday cake. Boy were we surprised by what really happened...

The party started out fine. We ate dinner (lasagna, one of Andrew's favorites) and he was having a great time playing with all his cousins. After dinner, we decided to open his presents before diving into the birthday cake. This is going to be Andrew's favorite part, right?

He started out a little hesitant. Luke helped him open up a drum set from Uncle Nathan and Aunt Kelly. He liked it and played with it a little bit, but he wasn't really sure what was going on.

We tried moving on to the next gifts, and as you can see below, he wasn't really sure about these presents...
Then....complete meltdown! He wanted nothing to do with the gifts. Every toy someone handed him he pushed away. I was flabbergasted. Crying...over presents? Nothing we tried would settle him down so we decided to move on to the birthday cake.

Every kid likes their birthday cake, right? Can you tell how much Andrew enjoyed it when we all sang to him?
(Isn't this a great picture of me laughing while my child is traumatized? Another one of my "Mother of the Year" moments...)

So after all this crying over presents and birthday cake, we adults all speculated as to what his problem was:

"Was he tired?" This was a possibility because he hadn't gotten much of a nap that day.

"Were his molars bothering him again?" Maybe, he's had some grouchy days lately because of his 2-year molars coming through.

"Was he overwhelmed by all the attention?" Not a problem we anticipated Andrew having, but maybe that was it. Could too many people watching him have freaked him out?

I spent the weekend wondering what made him so unhappy, and I think I figured it out today at the orthodontist. I had to take all four kids to Isaac's orthodontist appointment, and when Isaac was done the kind receptionist let Caleb and Andrew pick a toy out of the toy box with Isaac. Caleb and Isaac got their toy, and then the receptionist asked Andrew what he would like. He took one look inside the box and...another meltdown!!! He started wailing because this lady had asked him if he wanted a toy car! I couldn't believe it. I had to drag him out of the office crying because someone wanted to give him a toy. I've heard of kids throwing fits because they couldn't get toys, but I've never seen a kid cry because they were given a toy.

One of my friends joked that maybe Andrew is afraid of becoming too materialistic. Or maybe he's going to be a neat freak and is afraid of his room getting too cluttered with toys. Who knows? But for whatever reason, our son does NOT want anyone to give him any presents. Christmas is going to be fun this year. :)