In the Venn Diagram of Motherhood, with one circle being “Utterly Devoted Mother” and the other circle being, “Mom that drops the ball”, I found myself squarely in the overlap earlier this week, standing in the Giant grocery store at 8:30pm, the night before the ten year old’s birthday with a pre-inflated Happy Birthday balloon in one hand, and a ginormous bag of Takis and a slightly smaller bag of Cheetos cradled in my arms.
Because even though I had written in my December Aspirations List “Plan Birthday Party”, I utterly failed to do it. I don’t know why I have a mental block about this. Well, I can think of a couple of reasons:
1- I hate making decisions. And a birthday celebration is a myriad of decisions.
2- Her birthday is two weeks after Christmas. I know the flip of the calendar to a new year is a societal construct, but 2023 seems so far away during the tail end of 2022.
3 – Birthdays are just … not my thing. So it’s hard to prioritize them.
But… I love my family and my family loves Birthdays. So there I was at Giant. Why Giant? Well, I got stuck at work til 7:20pm, and by the time I got to Party City at 7:50pm, ten minutes before closing, the doors were already locked. Now I get that the last thing an underpaid sales associate wants to do ten minutes before closing is inflate eleven balloons; I don’t blame them entirely. But still… There might have been some cries of utter despair in the parking lot at 7:50pm.
Feeling defeated, I headed to Giant, since it was still open, and I figured – I didn’t get the kid a present, but I could still get her a bag of Takis. She would love a giant bag of Takis! Buying my kids Takis also fall into a Venn Diagram as well. One circle being “Things that make my kid happy” and the other circle being “Things that aren’t Legos”. Legos are great and full of creative possibilities. They also hurt a lot when you step on them, and are very frustrating when your younger siblings mess with them when you’ve only completed bag 3 of 6.
Luckily, Giant happened to have balloons, maybe not eleven, but they had some nice large foil ones. Only, there was no one working who could inflate the balloons. More cries of despair. I mean I’m already feeling pretty lame for a) not planning a birthday event, and b) deciding that a bag of Takis was a perfectly acceptable birthday present. Way back when, I used to get the oldest roses on her birthday, one rose for every year. But then, you know what? Roses are expensive, and they just die. So I stopped doing that. The very nice manager at customer service apologetically delivered the news that there was no one available to inflate my chosen Happy Birthday Unicorn-shaped balloon, but there were some pre-inflated balloons tied to the magazine displays at each register, and maybe one of those would work. There was one, a 36″ cupcake, that I thought might be okay, though it didn’t seem at it’s peak inflation point, but by this point it was 8:45pm and beggars could be choosers and all that.
Now you may ask, why am I the one running too and fro trying to make it look like I actually planned a special day evening? Well, that’s another Venn diagram of motherhood – one circle is “Mom guilt”, and the other circle is “Loves my kid.” And in the middle is “impulsive purchases.” The Husband, on the other hand, had only one job – the ten (soon to be eleven) year old wanted the Husband’s Kung Pao Chicken for Birthday dinner.
(Side note: It has come to my attention that my children like to eat meat and the lack of meat at the dinner table has not gone unnoticed. Just the other day, I had this exchange with the kids:
Mom: Do you guys like to go camping?
Five Year Old: Yessssss!
Mom: What’s you’re favorite part of camping?
Five Year Old: We get to eat meat!
Apparently Meat beats out campfires and fresh air and smores. )
So the Husband would make kung pao chicken, and I was at Giant.
It was all fine. It’s all fine. I’m a little salty that it feels like a lot of work for very little credit – which probably explains this little internet pity party, I’m throwing myself. It’s just that evening Giant runs are not like the type of thing where I can say to my kid, “See how much I love you? I stood in line for a balloon and Takis at 8:30pm on a school night!” (Though I do constantly remind her that I let the doctors cut me open to bring her into the world. Gah! I hope I’m not scarring her for life.) Aside from the fact that I don’t want to burden her with my mom guilt, I also don’t want to admit how utterly unprepared I was for her birthday. And at least I got to go home and kiss her goodnight before bed. There were many people working at the Giant that still had many hours left in their shift.
So here’s another Venn diagram from that evening: “People who are kind to me” and “People who work very late hours at the grocery check out.” And the nice folks at Giant are squarely in that overlap. And I’m grateful.
What a wonderful post. I feel this…all of it!
Birthday parties are NOT my thing and they drain me so completely. This year, at the end of his party, my 8-year-old proceeded to tell me it was his “worst party ever.” I knew he was upset from all the extra commotion, but it really did make me sad because – my goodness, even my limited efforts feel exhausting for me. I feel pressured to make everything like that special and memorable and yet, so many of the little moments behind-the-scenes (like scrambling to find things that are open/can inflate helium balloons), don’t get accounted for by other members of the family.
So I get it, and I applaud you for getting a balloon and a gift and for making the most of it. Your daughter is very fortunate to have such a great Mom <3