To parents who have ever toiled over their children’s birthday parties, consider this one big hall pass. Unless they’re constructing complete sentences, the kids won’t remember the parties. Or that you stayed up the night before icing 24 cupcakes shaped like pre-historic animals. Or personalized each party favor — in calligraphy.
Nope, they won’t remember.
Heresy, I know. Once, as a young mother 100 years ago, I would choose not to believe this either. My children were different, I would say. One day, at his wedding’s dress rehearsal dinner, my son will stand up and offer a toast to his parents, thanking us for raising him with love and support and throwing an awesome clown-themed birthday party when he was 2 years old. He will remember.
And my daughter, upon graduating from college on full scholarship, will stand at the podium holding her degree while giving a shout-out to her mother. “I’ll never forget the homemade ballerina cake you made when I was 3, Mom!’
Of course she will.
I considered all this when my family sat down to watch some home videos. It was a recording of my son’s second birthday, the one with the clown. I remember that party like it was yesterday. I had been on bed rest for two months, pregnant with my daughter. Suffice to say, I had a little time on my hands. So I didn’t mind hand-painting clowns on 15 little white T-shirts.
What else to do while lying in bed counting gestational weeks?
The kids played in our backyard until the clown invited them onto the porch for the magic show. Only one minor altercation was recorded. Two of the birthday guests pushed each other off the bench in an attempt to sit next to the birthday boy.
My husband and I got teary when we reached the part of the video in which our son started to pet the rabbit that appeared out of the clown’s magical box. He was so gentle, stroking the timid animal’s fur, yet not taking his eye off the clown of whom he was still highly suspect. The camera zoomed in to capture my 2-year-old’s look of complete bliss. For one minute, there was no one else on the porch except him and one well-petted bunny.
Watching the video, I leaned over to my now-teenage son and asked him what he was thinking. He grimaced, breaking it to me as gently as he could, “Mama, I don’t remember the party.”
My husband prompted him a bit more, reminding him how excited he was on that day so long ago. How we nuzzled him to sleep in the early evening singing our favorite Chet Baker song to our son conked out from the day’s celebration.
He still didn’t remember.
But we did.
And we’d do it again, painted clown T-shirts and all. Children’s birthdays are one of the best excuses I can think of to celebrate life. Especially when recorded on the back porch with a boy and his bunny.