I gotta be frank..

I hate birthdays.

If it’s my birthday and you are buying me pretty things, celebrating the day I came into this world, and rubbing my feet then I’m totally fine with it.

But the dreaded kid party sets my teeth a’ grindin. It makes me want to follow the beliefs of the Jehovah Witness religion and not celebrate birthdays.

Except for mine, of course. I’m a princess.

There are so many reasons why and I am magnanimous enough to tell you why. I am so good to you.

My daughter got ‘invited’ to a party today. I say ‘invited’ because I got the feeling she really wasn’t on the list since the girl quickly wrote up an invite on a thank you card while they were playing the other day. Now, I couldn’t care less if my child didn’t get invited to a party, in fact, I’d be grateful, so I thought I could avoid this party and my daughter wouldn’t notice but that was not the way it worked. So then I had to rush to figure out a present minutes before, then the mad dash to get her there with the other sister bawling cuz she doesn’t get to go.

At this point I can either deal with the screaming and crying that will last at least a half an hour or I can be the ass and call to invite my other child to the party.

I go with the ass card often.

Now I know the kids have so much fun and they love being involved and I would never take that away from them unless I had something better to offer them, but I never know what to buy for the birthday child, often, the stuff my kids bring home is way better than what I sent for the kid the party is for and if the party doesn’t involve both my girls I get to hear all about a child’s perspective on what’s fair.

My favorite is stressing over my own kids’ parties (which I try to have only every other year) like who to invite, is there anyone who will feel left out, should I just invite the siblings to make everyone happy (Those fears left me with a 6 year old party with around 20 guest that I couldn’t handle on my own and me sobbing on my kitchen floor the night before!!), party favors and what fun to have. I believe in keeping them very simple. I know without a doubt children need much less then what most parents do to feel loved and celebrated and I will not give into all the hype of bigger and better. For my 8 year old’s last birthday I allowed her to invite 3 girls over for a sleepover with movies, pizza, cake and junk food, nothing more. That has been one of her most favorite birthdays.

But sometimes it is hard to compete with the Build A Bear parties when my child comes home with a better gift than the one I sent, or a trip for all to Boondocks. A treat bag that had to have cost $10 a bag or ponies to take rides on or a live performance by Neil Diamond. I can’t (and won’t) compete with that.

Like I said, I would never try to take birthday parties away from my kids and I want them to be able to celebrate theirs and their friend’s birthdays, all I’m saying is they aren’t on my favorite things list.

But if anyone wants to celebrate my birthday, it’s never too late or too early and I would be all over that.

I’d really like a new MP3 player or simple gift cards will do. (Sorry, no pony rides this time..)