Deadbeat Mom Club
It’s been exciting at our house lately. Last Wednesday, our boat arrived in the Bay. That evening, Nana and Grandpa Al showed up, because Thursday was….drumroll please…
Kestrel’s second birthday.
I am pretty much the worst mother in the world. I was gone all day to Menlo, for back to back contentious meetings.
We haven’t done any big party things. Each of the three Grandmas brought him presents on different days, and each time, we sang Happy Birthday and he opened them. That’s it. Very low-key, almost a non-event. No sugar-cake-induced insanity, no meltdowns, no herds of polite adults ambling around making smalltalk and bringing plastic gifts we have no place to put on the boat. When I say it that way, it almost makes sense, but I still feel horribly guilty anyway.
I did my standard internal retrospective; at this time last year, I still had X number of hours of labor to go, etc. I still feel that his birth was one of the most triumphant moments of my entire life, and I’m still in awe of the events of that day. I don’t cry on Rowan’s birthday any more, but that’s a fairly recent thing. His first three birthdays, I woke up screaming at precisely 3:20AM (the moment the epidural went in). That seems to be over, thank goodness. It sucked. And definitely didn’t make for shiny-happy days following, that’s for sure. The body remembers. So it was really nice, for Kestrel’s, to sleep straight through the Blessed Moment.
At this point, I’m just hoping against hope that he doesn’t get older, ask where the pictures of his second birthday are, and end up in therapy.
Silly woman. Won’t happen.
All the birthday party competition crap? Screw it. What matters is the love and that you sang to your little guy.
The rest is just nonsense.
don’t worry about pictures, I am sure the Grandparents have plenty. lol
My second son’s first birthday went by with barely a blink. The mommy guilt, the piles of mommy guilt…
I’m surprised that you of all people are getting sucked into society’s idea of what children’s birthdays *should be.* Laureen, is that really you?
Come on now. You provide for him on a daily basis in ways that other party moms never do.
He’s not going to remember this birthday, and he sure isn’t going to ask for pix of any particular one. Even if he did, explanation would be enough. After all, he has many birthdays to come that will be memorable with Mama!
Drop the guilt. It is so wasteful. Dana