Last Minute Mom Stuff

I feel like this blog is my neglected child. I have two other blogs that focus on sci-fi and they take so much of my blogging time that I never seem to have the chance to use this personal blog. I suppose that's just as well, I have had a tendency to be too maudlin over the last few months and no one really wants to see that. Heck, when I read personal blogs, I prefer the funny stuff. I just wish I had better comic timing.

I'm yawning all over the place today. My daughter, who turns eight on Sunday, decides to remind me last night at 9:30pm that she needs cupcakes to take to school today. Doh! I should have remembered that myself but it slipped my mind. Well, almost. I thought of it last night before she reminded me but I thought, I can do it Monday, that's closer to her birthday anyway. But second graders don't think that way. The class celebration must be prior to, or on, the actual birthday. So, not wanting to be the mom who shafted her kid on her birthday I schlepped myself up to the store, got supplies, and was up to about midnight making cupcakes. Oh well, it's all for a good cause. She may not remember as she gets older that I made her cupcakes for school, but she sure as hell would remember if I didn't!

She's a good kid though. I would've probably been kicking myself if I hadn't done it.

Not to get maudlin again (sorry!) but my parents have been known to forget my birthday. Not too much when I was little, but that's kind of hard when you have an 8-year-old reminding you every other second that their birthday is 2 days and 6--- no 5 hours and 45 minutes away. But there was this time when I was 10....

I'm not entirely sure they forgot my birthday but I think they did. I didn't get any birthday presents that year. My mom and dad gave me a card saying that my dad was going to build me a swing-set for my birthday. Bwahahahahahahah! I knew right then and there I'd never see the swing-set. My dad is not exactly a master builder. He put up a fence once and forgot to put in a gate. It was funny. We had this massive yard and my dad built a fence around the downstairs sliding door so we'd have a place to let the dogs out. But you could only get in and out of the yard through the slider since he forgot the gate. But he was so proud of that fence. It wasn't straight, but he built it.

I never asked my parents about the swing-set. I knew my dad wouldn't build it, but I also knew that if I pestered him enough to actually try, I'd end up with something sure to break my neck, so I let the whole thing lie. But I still think they forgot the birthday and tried to come up with a last minute promise so I wouldn't think they forgot. Wouldn't be the last time.

I wonder if my brothers had this happen to them too? I've never asked them and I probably won't. Why bother bringing up something that will just end up in a bitter conversation? (I know.. I know... why do I do this?) But in a way I'd like to know I wasn't alone in being a little forgotten.

Okay, I gotta shake this off. I don't want to be a downer. It's just I think of this stuff when my kids birthday's roll around. I know women have looooong memories but I suspect we all do when we're kids. And I sure as heck don't want my children to remember that I forgot to think they're important on their birthdays. I would deserve to be smacked for that.