I Want Better Memories For My Kids

Birthday parties – the celebration of life and a great excuse to get some new toys or clothes. Then later in life it’s a reason to throw, well, reason out the window and drink yourself to the porcelain thrown. I have lots of home videos of my childhood birthdays. I don’t remember any of them but watching them is enough. Same people where there each year.

The only birthday I remember is my 13th. My last birthday party. I was only thinking about this because Giggles party was canceled the other week due to all families but one being ill. It was to be the first time we had a birthday party for any of the kids that their friends were going to be there and not just family. I keep thinking about how upset they were cause they were not going to play with their friends. Thankfully, I know they are young enough they will not remember – besides we did have a great time that day anyway. They didn’t cry for hours on end like I did.

Family Time Replaced Birthday Memories

I remember my 13th birthday party in chunks. The usual suspects were there and a few new ones – all went to our church somehow even if it was just to attend the youth group. It was a slumber party filled with lots of pizza, junk food, and pop. Of course my mom kept her distance as most parents would do if surrounded by a bunch of hormonal tweens and teens. I don’t remember a ton of details – I have no clue as to what gifts I got, but I do remember a ‘gift’ one of the other girls tried to give me. Almost all of the girls knew I had a crush on Joe*. Joe was one of those guys in the youth group that was a few years older then me and he was cute and mysterious. So she called him and put him on speaker phone. Of course I was a total embarrassed newly teen of a mess. All that I can remember is basically – while on speakerphone for everyone in the room to hear was that he said no and that I was ugly of sorts.

Oh yeah – he went there! Of course having a few years experience in building up walls around me I joked and laughed it off – but the next night I cried. For hours. I was so embarrassed it was hard to even go to school – not to mention church. From then on – no more parties. No sweet 16, my version of a party when I turned 18 was to travel half way around the world, my 21st I went with my mother and another local school administrator to a local cafe. I don’t want these kind of memories for my kids. I don’t want them stopping something that is a privilege of being a child just because of one bad memory. I also didn’t go to birthday parties either. Perhaps because I wasn’t inviting them to my nonexistent ones. Even some of my closest friends – or those that I thought I was pretty close to did not invite me to the biggest sweet 16 party ever. In the past right. Old foggy memories.

Perhaps, I should be teaching my kids how to forgive, forget, and continue on with life – but I haven’t done that myself. I just want life for them to be perfect – and so far I’m failing. I can’t keep them for getting sick. I can’t keep their friends from hurting their feelings. Heck, I can’t keep from myself hurting their feelings or some day embarrassing them in front of their friends. The only thing I can do it to remind them that I’m hear and somehow to make sure they know that they can talk to me. That when they fall it’s okay to brush yourself off and get up. Sure you have grass stains on your knees but you know what if they don’t wash out – get rid of the pants.

This is one lesson that I didn’t learn from my mom. Not that she didn’t try to teach me, but because I had long put up the walls and wasn’t ready to hear anything. Now I get a second chance – well actually three chances – at teaching my kids that even if we don’t get the memories that we want they are memories and are there for a reason. A reason that only HE knows.

*Joe is a made up name. Because yes I suppressed the memory of his name and even face that far into the depths I honestly can not remember it. I even went to said friends Facebook account to see if one of her friends would jar the memory for me. Nope, I got nothing!