Party On

This will not be my first post about birthday parties.
I fervently hope it will be my last. In fact, on my next birthday, I plan to wish on the candle (I only allow one - I don't want to set off the smoke alarm) that my family celebrates hundreds more birthdays, very happy ones, but without the parties that make me so inclined to open up a bloggy vein and weep.

Next month, my delightful and complicated boy will turn eight, and I thought I had cleverly sold him on the idea of celebrating with his adoring family at an overpriced amusement park, eating Z Pizza and gorging on allergy-free cake. But his sister insisted on a party this year -- two weeks ago -- and even though we arranged a boys' day out for him so she could revel in girly paradise with her friends over mani/pedis, now nothing will do for him but a party of his own.

And I must admit to you the awful truth. I. Cannot. Do. It.
For the first time in 14 birthdays between them, I am foisting the festivity on their dad.

It's not just that I'm too tired, though I am weary to the bone. To the bone, I tell you. To the marrow.
It's not just that it feels only fair that daddy take a turn, since his usual contribution is pretty much lighting the candles and trying to pretend he can remember people's names.

It's that I can't bear the fact that my son's classmates won't want to come to his party.

There are worse problems. I can count with deep appreciation so very many blessings: that we have two amazing kids who are here to have birthdays, that we live in a beautiful and peaceful place, that we can afford to throw them a party, that we have people who love us.

But for me, loving my kids means wanting people to see the good in them, including wanting them to have friends.

I don't really know if Rooster has friends at his school.
I know he has enemies. I know he has people who tolerate him. I know he has frequent conflicts. But I don't know if he has friends. And this year, it makes me sad. It makes me especially sad as my husband pays the park rental fee and tries to make a celebratory plan. It makes me sad because I don't know if anyone will show up. After all, his birthday is the end of May, not long before school gets out, and he has not been invited to a single party all year. Not by a kid at school, and not by a kid outside of school.
And I somehow doubt it's because all those other kids' parents conned their kids into foregoing parties to hide from social ostracism at Disneyland. Wish I could.