I have officially discovered the secret to throwing a stress-free birthday party for a three-year-old: don’t throw one. Just take her to Florida.
Honestly, 10/10. Highly recommend.
There was no balloon arch, no goodie bags filled with tiny plastic objects I will eventually step on, and no spending $500 on decorations she will acknowledge for approximately four seconds. I didn’t have to wonder whether I ordered and cooked enough food or if I needed to invite someone because they invited us to their kid’s birthday six months ago.
Just Florida.
Last week, we went to Anna Maria Island, and the timing happened to fall during what is basically the Holland family’s version of birthday season. September is busy over here. My husband and I celebrated our anniversary, Aria turned three, my dad’s 59th birthday was just a few days after we got home, and Brandon’s 34th followed three days later.
Basically, September arrives and my bank account starts sweating.
Three feels big. She’s not really a baby anymore, and she has opinions now. So many opinions. She can tell you exactly what she wants, except, of course, when you give her exactly what she asked for and she informs you that this is absolutely NOT what she wanted.
Three is humbling.
But because it felt like such a milestone birthday, part of me wondered if I was supposed to do more. Should we have had the party, the decorations, the theme, and the cake table that looks like it was catered for a small wedding?
But then I thought about what Aria actually wants when she is happiest. It’s not a party, presents, or some elaborate experience that I spent three weeks planning and 45 minutes trying to get everyone out of the house for.
She wants mama to play with her, dada to come here, somebody to watch what she’s doing, and preferably for all of us to do it again. And again. And probably one more time after that.
So for a few days, that’s what we gave her. We gave her our time.
We swam in the pool while it rained. She chased seagulls down the beach with Grandpa, fully convinced she was eventually going to catch one. She collected seashells and brought them to me like she had personally discovered buried treasure. We watched the sunset, went in the ocean, rode around town on a golf cart, and went out for breakfast where she got a pancake roughly the size of a manhole cover.
And we rode the elevator at our Airbnb, which naturally became one of the highlights of the entire vacation.
Nothing keeps you humble as a parent quite like spending money to take your child to a beautiful Florida island surrounded by water and sunsets, only to realize she is equally impressed by pressing the number 2 in an elevator.
Could’ve saved a lot of money and taken her to a Marriott back home.
But one of my favorite moments happened on the beach.
Aria had decided that collecting seashells was now very serious business. She would walk a few feet, crouch down, inspect the sand, pick one up, and come running back to me with her hand stretched out.
“Mama, look!”
Every single shell was presented with the excitement of someone who had just found a diamond.
Some were beautiful. Some were broken. Some were basically just suspicious-looking pieces of sand.
It did not matter.
To her, they were all treasures.
If she handed it to me, I kept it.
At one point I looked down and realized I was standing on this gorgeous beach with my hands full of tiny shells that I had apparently been promoted to Director of Seashell Operations for.
And I loved every second of it.
Somewhere along the way, I had decided that doing more was how you proved a moment mattered.
She had no idea she was supposed to be missing anything.
We are always collecting souvenirs, especially on vacation. We collect seashells, take hundreds of pictures, and buy random little things because apparently putting the name of a town on an object immediately makes us need it.
We bring those things home because we want proof that we were there. We want something that says it happened and that, for a few days, life looked a little different.
But standing there with my hands full of her shells made me wonder if the best souvenirs aren’t always the ones we take with us.
Maybe they’re the ones we leave behind.
I don’t know how much Aria will actually remember about turning three, and that’s one of the strangest parts about parenting little kids. These are some of the biggest days of my life, and she might remember absolutely none of them.
It’s sort of rude, if you want my opinion.
For a second, that thought makes me sad. Then I think about my own childhood. I don’t remember every birthday cake, every present, every place my parents took me, or every ordinary afternoon they spent playing with me.
But I remember how my childhood felt.
I remember knowing somebody had time for me.
And maybe that’s what sticks. The feeling that when you yelled, “Mama, look!” for the 700th time that day, Mama still looked.
Okay, maybe 684 out of the 700, because I’m only human.
September holds so many milestones for our family. My marriage is getting older, my daughter is getting older, my parents are getting older, and somehow I’m now the person standing in the middle of all of it.
Which feels impossible because I swear I was 24 approximately six minutes ago.
Time is so weird like that.
We spend so much of life waiting for the next thing. We wait for the vacation, the birthday, the anniversary, the weekend, the promotion, the house, the baby, or whatever comes next. Then one day you realize the things you were waiting for have become the things you’re nostalgic for.
Maybe that’s why this birthday felt so special to me. There was nowhere else I needed to be and nothing I needed to make bigger or more impressive. I didn’t need to create some perfect third birthday for her.
I just needed to be in it.
I know there will be more birthday parties, balloons, themes, and cakes. There will also be years when she cares deeply about exactly who is invited, what color everything is, and whether I have somehow ruined her entire life.
I hear the teenage years are lovely.
But at three, she just wanted us, and I’m so glad I realized that while she still does.
Because someday, “Mama, play with me” won’t be the soundtrack of our house. She won’t always ask me to get in the pool or need me to watch every jump, every twirl, and every completely unidentifiable thing she insists she just drew.
Someday, I might be the one asking for more of her time.
So maybe this birthday wasn’t about giving her less. Maybe it was about finally understanding what “more” actually meant.
I brought a few souvenirs home from Anna Maria Island. I have the pictures, the memories, probably sand in my suitcase still, and a few very important seashells selected by a three-year-old with extremely high standards.
But I hope we left something with her, too.
Maybe she won’t remember the pancake, the seagulls, swimming in the rain, or riding around on the golf cart. She might not even remember spending her third birthday on Anna Maria Island.
But I hope some part of her remembers what it felt like.
To have nowhere we needed to be.
To have mama, dada, and grandpa right there.
To hear “yes” a little more than usual.
To feel like, for those few days, there was nothing more important in the world than being with her.
Maybe those are the souvenirs we leave behind.
Not the things our kids can hold onto, but the things they carry with them.
Simply Sonia 