Thursday, October 05, 2006

Mad. Not Going To Take It.

So Peanut was born on a Monday in October. His cousin was born the Friday before. The boys are less than three days apart. They will always have their birthdays right next to each other. There is also a large craft fair that all my sisters usually go to each year. They have been going to this thing for over 10 years. So it's sort of tradition. Anyway, this all happens in a span of one week. So I talked to several family members trying to come up with the best way to have a first birthday party for my son. I didn't want to randomly pick a weekend and force the family to choose between Peanut and Cousin. That didn't seem fair. So I worked it out where we will have a family birthday party for both boys on Saturday at Cousins house. The next Saturday Peanut will have his own party here at home with all his 'friends'. Really our friends that have kids, but still. The friend party is during the craft fair, but I'll just skip it and the family can go.

I called my sister to make a plan and she said "you plan whatever you want since this is your first child’s first birthday." Cousin is her fifth child. So I made the aforementioned plan, sent out invitations, bought plates and other cute birthday party stuff. The party is in nine days. Three days ago a different sister called to see if I would move the party. She wants her daughter (age 6) to go to a cheerleading class from 10 – 2. The party is scheduled for noon. I said no. I didn’t want to have the party at dinner time and then try to put my kid to bed. She scheduled the class anyway and decided she would miss the party and just come late. Today, Cousins mom called to ask if we could move the party. Her husband has some to-do and won’t be home until 5. I said no. My father-in-law probably will only come if it is in the daytime, not evening. She said ok.

As a side story, I wanted to tell Cousins mom that his father has missed half his life and could care less to be there during the party. Does his father even know when his birthday is? You see he travels to the Middle East a lot for work and is gone for up to a couple months at a time. He left my sister at home (with 5 kids,) when Cousin was only about 6 WEEKS old. You can leave a 6 week old, but all the sudden you care if you get cake at noon or a little later? Please.

So I talked to Husband and he suggested we have lunch or something with his father and then go to the party in the evening. That’s all well and good, but I’m so mad that I worked to make sure my one and only son would have a nice party all of his family could attend. Now everyone wants me to change it. It's not fair that husbands family is getting screwed. It's his fathers only grandchild. Don't you think maybe that's a big deal to him? Now he gets to attend a quick lunch instead of a party. I hope he can come to the friend party so he can spend some special time with Peanut. I’m mad. So mad, that I don’t even want to go now. I want to just have his party here and tough love to those that can’t make it. My family sucks the fun out of everything. Next year I’m picking a weekend and whoever can come is welcome. I’m done trying to please everyone.

I’m still mad my sister had a baby so close to us. I feel like Peanut will always be sold short. Will he get the same attention on his birthday at a joint celebration that he would have gotten alone? Is it wrong of me to want that for him? He probably won’t get as many or as nice of gifts, because everyone will have had to buy two instead of just one. Is that wrong too? I’m going to make certain that he knows how important and special he is.

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