Perhaps I should have known, when the baby shower for my oldest daughter was derailed by a significant snowstorm, that having a child with a January birthday would be tricky.
I blame my initial confidence on her first birthday party, which came off without a hitch. Celebrated with friends and family in a house decorated with balloons, the birthday girl was decked out in a special dress, purchased just for the occasion, and presented with a homemade, three-tier cake. Sweet success.
Then birthday number two arrived and between icy roads, illnesses, and I honestly don’t remember what else, not a single guest could make it. Instead, several gallons of soda, a pile of paper plates and a host of snacks went unused and, if I remember correctly, her cake was of the coffee variety, served in lieu of breakfast with a candle in its center. Tada!
A year later we celebrated two birthdays because – you guessed it – my second daughter was also born in January. That year the basement flooded and I, recovering from an appendectomy, didn’t even entertain the possibility of… entertaining. Instead, we made do with a stale boxed cake and some creative photography that made the day look a lot more fun than it was. But the guilt still set in.
Now, I know that babies don’t care about parties or a lack thereof. But two years in a row of abject failure stung. And so, we created a new plan.
First, no more presents because, with Christmas barely over, the kids simply did not need any more stuff. Second, we were leaving the house, because January can be oppressive and by mid-month we needed to get out. And that’s how the birthday trips began.
The first few years were spent exploring the Oregon Coast. The girls were young and the waves and sand were a novelty. We let them pick the restaurant – with help – and then we set up a base camp
on the sand and they played until they were tired.
After that, we made trips to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, to a child-centered art studio. We tried out new restaurants and explored different cuisines. And no one seemed to miss the typical birthday celebration. Even when they began getting invites to typical parties the girls seemed content with our own brand of fun.
Then our third child was born – in October.
One of the wonderful things about mid-October in Oregon is that, nearly every year, the weather is beautiful. It also turns out that, after six years of not being invited to celebrate our children’s birthday on the actual day, our family members were eager to make up for lost time.
Suddenly birthday celebrations became a bit of a hybrid affair. Family came – when they could make it – on the actual day of birth. Then the weekend was filled with adventure. It was complicated, but it worked. Until COVID hit.
Now all the places we normally visited were either closed or restricted, so birthday adventures were out. We still invited family but could only see them outside and at a six foot distance – fine for an October birthday, but in January it was a chilly affair.
Unexpectedly, birthdays started to feel the way they had in the beginning, tentative and somewhat dread-filled. I found myself wondering, would plans fall through? Would anyone be able to come? Would the day be as special as we, the parents, wanted it to be?
But the answer to all these questions was the same as it had always been – yes.
Yes, our plans will sometimes fail. But they will also morph into something entirely new and equally special simply because we get to celebrate one more year with a beloved child.
And yes, guests will cancel. People get sick, snowed in, or just busy. But in this era of technology there are other ways to meet, and love can be sent through the mail, over phone lines or shouted over Zoom.
And yes, sometimes the day won’t seem as special as we, the parents hoped. It might be spent on the couch with a sick kid, running through the rain because of an unexpected cloudburst or six feet apart because of a pandemic, but it will still happen and parts of it – namely the parts we spend together – will still be pretty great.
