When you have more than 1 kid you can have the possibility of close birthdays. This happened to my brothers, my husband and his brother and to my kids. I prefer having birthdays close together rather than all separate. For one its much easier on family members and friends who only have to go to 1 party instead of 2 or 3. And its easier on me who only has to plan 1 party instead of 2 or 3. But really, we have no choice in the matter and we do what we have to do.
But how do you do that? How do you make it fair to both (or more) of the kids when they don't get their own party. It saddens me to think that we have become that worldly, that materialistic that we even have to worry about it. What is it teaching our children?
What we have come up with is that each child gets to do one thing with daddy for their birthday. Its with daddy, not with Mommy, because I get to be with them all the time. Daddy never does. I even get to be alone with them frequently but daddy never does. This is great for bonding and for daddy who never gets to be there for anything. And they get their special day, their one day.
For their party; we have 1, usually between birthdays, and just celebrate both birthdays together. In March we have 3, in May we have 2, in August we have mine and one of my kids, in September we have 2. So that works out to only 4 parties a year instead of 8. Much more economical.. The kids never complain that they don't get their own party, because they had their own day. I think too, that it help deflect some of the attention. For those that don't like being the center of attention, the kids who are shy, this allows them to have their party but not be the focus.
This has worked very well for us the last few years.
3 of our boys have September Birthdays within 9 days...the December child says he feels left out (June and August are too young to weigh in.) We let each child pick a restaurant to go to (yes,it gets painful (kaching) in September but I wouldn't change it for the world)and they each get their own cake, streamers etc.
ReplyDeleteI am the one that doesn't like to be anywhere near the center of attention! I'm 47 and I have always hated my birthday and any other day that focuses on just me (Mother's Day, Secretary's Day (when I worked), etc.) I also hate doing parties for my kids. I would just as soon have one party a year to celebrate all family birthdays, with one huge cake, etc. Then, on the actual birthday, let the birthday person spend his day however he likes (within reason). Unfortunately, I'm the only one in my family who thinks this would be a grand idea.
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