things i'm bad at

okay, let's just focus on one thing that I'm bad at for now... birthdays. I decided a long time ago that with a whole herd of children I would not be throwing big blow out birthday parties for every kid, every year. I decided on a few birthdays that we would do something extra special, like 4 and 8 and 12 and 16, and the rest of the birthdays we would just do something small as a family to mark the occasion. I felt good about this plan. It seemed doable. All of the kids got a party when they turned 4, except McKay, which was fine, I decided to do it when he was 5 which now seems to make more sense to me anyway. He turned 5 on November 16th and I have not yet begun to plan his party. Oh, and did I mention that I forgot him at preschool on his birthday. Yap, I picked up Bryce and Abby and Gracie from their school and then just came home. Nate got a party when he turned 8 but not 12, he might get one for 13, probably not. I flaked on Bryce's 8th birthday but made up for it on his 9th. I seriously have no memory of whether or not I gave Abby an 8th or 9th birthday party. Gracie will be 8 in 4 months, we'll see what happens. It's not just the parties that I suck at though. I also usually don't get around to buying gifts until the day of their birthday and then I don't have time to wrap them so we hide them behind our backs then hand them to the birthday boy or girl. I've only made 2 or 3 birthday cakes in my life. Usually I buy them and more often than not I for get to get candles. Or if there are candles I can't find a lighter so we just pretend to blow them out. I have very few pictures of the kid's birthdays too. Which is probably for the best now that I think about it. I read about and see other people's family birthday traditions; home made cakes, letting a helium balloon go with a special birthday wish, decorating the house with signs and streamers, having fun parties and you know that crazy tradition of blowing out candles and the one where the gifts are actually wrapped and I feel... well...stressed. I want to do those things. I want to have fun, special birthday traditions but just the thought of it stresses me to like, the billionth degree. The good part is that my kids don't seem to mind. The sad part is that my kids don't seem to mind. Any who, next week on "Things I'm Bad At" we'll be discussing laundry and cleaning house in general.