The Great Birthday Debate

Before I begin I want to say, in all seriousness, thank you to those of you who, very nicely and in your own way, told me to get my head out of my ass and stop whining about someone taking my baby name. I'm still miffed about the whole situation, but after re-reading that post it struck me that I could be spending my valuable time on writing about more important things. Like war, famine, pestilence, the fact that we still have two more years with W....


Or Baby's First Birthday Party!


Oh my Christ.

Call it what you want: Hullabaloo, Social, Bash, or full-blown Kegger (hey, that would be fun)... Am I really expected to throw a sizeable celebration for Chicky Baby's birthday? More to the point, do I really expect that from myself? I'm waffling on this idea and I'm not quite sure how to proceed. On the one hand, a first birthday is reason to celebrate. This is a truly momentous occasion. If you stop and remember, as most of you can, how far this little person has come in their development, throwing a party doesn't seem like so much a burden as a way to observe the progression from tiny, needy lump to little hellion-on-the-move. Raise your sippy cups and say a toast, for soon we enter Toddler-hood.

(And there won't be much toasting done then, at least not until she finally is off to the land of Nod for the evening.)

To be brutally honest, though, the party would be more for me for keeping this child alive and well for 365 days. However, if you take my need to be patted on the back out of the equation and really get down to brass tacks... Really, how much does a one year old care about a birthday party? Its not like she's going to remember it. Her only association will be from looking at old photographs years later, or maybe a list of what sort of loot she got from which relative. The Hubby and I could keep the shindig really small, close family and a couple of friends only, have a cake and some presents and be done with it.

Oh, 'tis so much trickier than that, though.

There are the people who are required to be there - Chicky Baby's Grandparents, Aunts (well, just one Aunt, the other one doesn't live close enough to attend), Great Grandparents, and a smattering of close friends with small children whose parties we attended (Okay, they're not really required to be there, but I've been waiting for my chance at payback for a while. If that makes me an awful person, then so be it.) All together, by my count, not including the Hubby and me the list is already at about 20 people.

Then we get to the tricky part. Let me give you some background... First of all, "close family" is a very broad term for me. My Mother, coming from a good Catholic family, was one of 11 children. Every holiday, birthday, graduation, or Saturday afternoon was spent with no less than 30 people. I'd like to say we're a genuinely close-knit family who is happy to come together for any reason, but we're really more like the mob. There may be back-stabbing, lying, cheating, and bad blood, but you're still "family". No matter what, you have to be present for certain occasions.

Some of you know by now that I lost my Mom a couple of years ago. Since then, her two sisters and my God-Mother have tried to take small, but active roles in my, and my sister's, lives. Surrogate Mothers, I guess. I'd like to include them in Chicky Baby's birthday and I know they would be happy to come. But, as I found out when planning my wedding a few years ago, if you invite some and not all, be ready for the bitching. Oh, and bitching I will hear through channels, because they wouldn't dare complain to my face. My uncles and their wives have still not really forgiven me for not inviting them to my wedding (we were keeping it small. Besides, they were at my first one!) and, though they really wouldn't want to attend a baby's birthday party - and would complain and moan that they would have to drive an hour to get to it and waste a perfectly good Sunday [see picture at right] - they don't want to NOT be invited. I can't win.

I know what I have to do... For my sanity and my daughter's and husband's sanity, I'm going to keep this party small and the relatives be damned. They're going to bitch no matter what I do. I suppose the point of this was to clear my head of all the negativity, to get it out there (aren't you all lucky) and make peace with it. If you have any words of wisdom, perhaps something I haven't thought of, I would certainly accept them eagerly.

If birthdays are this hard now, I'm screwed when I have to decide what to do when Chicky Baby has a list of 20 kids she wants to invite to her 5th birthday!