Birthday Parties

I love a good celebration. Especially for a child. Their parties are so special. I remember most of my birthday parties growing up. It meant so much to me at even a young age my parents made sure every year I had a special birthday with all my friends and family. I had a bowling party, roller skating party, sleepovers. And as I got older, I had really nice dinners, favorite meals, a steak party, and of course the special Quinceanera tradition when a young girl turns 15. So many amazing memories.

Now as a parent, I really struggle with birthday parties. I love hosting them, but by the end of the party, I'm so exhausted and overworked from it all that I literally crash. Plus, the cleanup... not fun. Going to parties is a whole other experience. Seriously though, when does it get better? I went to a party today and I'm exhausted. We weren't even there that long. Maybe an hour and a half. I was ready to leave after 45 minutes into the party.

When I attended kids' parties when I did not have kids, it was just me and my husband. It was so much easier and we could enjoy ourselves. It is not like that now with two very young toddlers. Luckily, my girls do well with both me and my husband and other family members when they need help, but with them being the youngest at almost every party they go to, it feels as if the older kids are a little rougher around them and don't consider that they're so little. And then I as a parent have to watch my children, make sure they stay safe and then other kids aren't complete assholes to mine. It's exhausting. Plus trying to get them to stop playing, to eat is almost impossible. There's so much distraction, they don't want to eat, they don't want to drink, they don't want to use the restroom, so there's almost always an accident, and when you take them away from play, que the meltdown. Then trying to remove my child from the party to calm her down from a meltdown happens wayyyy too often meanwhile everyone else around telling me or my husband what we should do. We have not gone to a party yet where one of my girls does not have a meltdown. I felt like I couldn't socialize, I felt like I barely talked to the birthday girl, and I felt I was managing the entire time. Like I said before, not fun. Yes, my girls had fun and at the end of the day, that's all that matters. But doesn't change the fact that it is completely emotionally and mentally draining.

At the party I went to today, I tried to talk to my daughter to get off the slide because it was time to eat pizza. She loves pizza, but she loves the slide more. So I took her off the slide and picked her up. She of course started to scream at me. I removed her from the play area and talked to her calmly that it was time to eat and we can play later. How dare I do that to her... anyways, there was a little boy that walked past me and said "it sounds like your daughter hates you"... WTF. I mean I know he's a little boy and most kids don't have filters, but who says something like that to an adult. I don't usually correct kids, because it's not my place. I don't step in. But in that case, he insulted me and determined my daughters' relationship with me. Not okay. So I said "excuse me, that was incredibly inappropriate. Not nice at all". He looked at me and said "Oh, sorry" and ran away. It pissed me off. Getting that comment on top of dealing with a screaming child was complete mental overload at that point. I brought my daughter inside and she took a break from the outside crazy and finally ate some pizza. But getting to that point was just ridiculous.

Maybe I am the only one that struggles with this. I even said that to my husband tonight. I said that sometimes it feels like we are the only family that struggles at events like this. He did make a good point though, that most the kids there are older and they can play by themselves, speak for themselves, feed themselves. It's easier at that age. When they were younger and around our girls age, we didn't have kids at that time, so we don't really know or remember how they were at parties. Maybe they did struggle and we never noticed. That kind of made me feel better about it. But doesn't change the fact that every party we go to, there's always something. AND it is never fun.

There was a moment that honestly almost brought me to tears which is why birthday parties are so important in a kids life. My oldest is 3. She just turned 3. She doesn't have many friends at this age because she does not go to school. She has her cousins and her sister. Her aunt gave her cake and I asked her if she wanted to sit with her GIGI (my mother in law). She loves her GiGi and almost always says yes to that. But at that moment, she looked at me and said "I want to sit with my friends". She has never referred to anyone as her friends before. The big kids were sitting at the little table and she wanted to sit with them. Of course there weren't anymore chairs, so I found a small stool she could sit on. She sat at the table with her "friends". She didn't talk to them, she just sat with them. It was the sweetest thing and instantly I felt guilt. I have no idea why I felt guilt, but I did. I wanted to cry for her. I felt as if I have kept her away from having friends by being a SAHM. It's hard to explain what I felt exactly at that moment but it was definitely a bittersweet moment as a parent.

We got home and my daughter ate another slice of pizza we brought home from the party, and both of my girls were in a happy good mood. I just wish people would see that kind of behavior. How sweet and happy they are when they are with us at home. They're happier and calmer and the world's sweetest little girls.

I appreciate you reading this post if you have gotten to this point. I needed to write this post for myself. I was struggling this evening with a mix of emotions. When I feel like that, I do best to write it out and share my thoughts. It helps me release anything that feels negative inside of me. Today was a long day. I'm exhausted. If you've experienced anything like this, please let me know. I'd love to hear your story.

Thanks so much for reading!

Susana