And what a party it was. The fun began at Jump Zone, where most of us were blinded by bright, enormous, inflated dinosaurs and superheroes – seriously, these things were easily two stories high. The Perfect Grandson, however, was not intimidated and ran like a boy possessed from one giant thing to another, jumping, sliding, throwing beach balls, screaming. A good fall and a bloody lip didn’t slow him down at all. The minimum age for this kind of kid-stravaganza is two, and he was only just.

But keep that to yourself. If you so much as whisper “birthday party” in that joint the $8 entry blossoms into a cool $200. We were on the down-low for this one. It was a family play date.

Afterwards it was off to the great-grandparents for chicken and Spiderman cake and the real birthday shindig. After eating everything that wasn’t nailed down, The Perfect Grandson opened all his presents, shot some hoops on his new basketball goal, and splashed around in the wading pool until he practically fell asleep in it. It was a Very Happy Birthday.

The whole party was the work of one single mama. She tripped the light fantastic on this one, baking and hand-decorating the Spidey-web cake and slinging herself down all those impossible blow-up slides at Jump Zone. She even mustered the energy to invite her father to the festivities, and made him behave. He’s divorcing again, so that was no small feat.

The Perfect Grandson is two. He got Spiderman glow-in-the-dark Big Boy Underpants to mark the day and what comes next will be no small feat, either.

What comes next is three and four and ten and cars and girls and “don’t tell me what to do, I’m a man.” But keep that to yourself. She had bouts of mama-tears three or four times yesterday alone and it might be best to keep the rest of what’s coming on the down-low as well.

Baby steps.