For all my self doubt, sometimes I can be a pretty good mom

Before I get started, I am going to try crossposting this on reddit and my blog again. Even after all this time, I still find reading and responding to the comments here kind of clunky. I can't begin to tell you all enough how much I appreciate the kind words I got in response to my last post, both in the comments and in email. Again some amazingly thought provoking perspectives that I had not thought about and things that I really should bring up with this new therapist. It will be the same post in each spot, I just don't want to miss comments. Where ever you are reading this, the links to each are: 

My reddit profile: https://old.reddit.com/user/DecentData5441/

My blog site: https://danniqp.blogspot.com/

Late January has always been a really fun time in our family. TJ's birthday is January 25th and Abby's is January 30th. I always assumed that the winter birthdays were proof positive that Bubs and I were spring time lovers (the Destin fiasco, getting lost on the ranch and me telling him to get an air mattress in the back of his truck because I couldn't wait any longer--all happened in the spring). But I guess little Cado and their April due date show we have some of that "Summer Love" as well. Bubs I told you I'd trap you in my Sandy and Danny fantasy someday!

As you may imagine, with 7 cousins living on the same street and 3 overzealous sisters who need every special date on the calendar to be an EVENT, kids parties tended to be huge. It was a little overwhelming to have two massive parties on subsequent weekends but I always had my sisters to help. While I always love celebrating the kids' birthdays, I wasn't looking forward to these because this would be the first birthday for both kids that wasn't going to be an over the top celebration. 

One of the things that I've always loved about the kids is how they are a perfect mix of Bub's and my personalities. Abby is incredibly introverted like Bubs but tends to overthink and relive moments and question her actions like I do. TJ is incredibly extroverted (in fact he wears me out sometimes) but just like Bubs he doesn't let it show when things are bothering him and gets over things really quickly. I didn't want the lack of parties to be a surprise so I had sort of been prepping them. When I told Abby that her party would probably just be a family dinner and not the huge party we had last year. Her response was "oh thank God" as she rolled her eyes at me and went about her business. I knew TJ would be more disappointed but he's always so sunny and he just said "don't worry Mom, I know you'll make it special."  He was so sweet but that put the pressure on. 

It was really a blessing that the kids had their little scuffle last weekend because even though he is 10, that boy has become TJ's first friend in the area.  As the week went on, TJ said that all he wanted to do for his birthday was to have his new friend come over so they could play Fortnight all day long, get Cane's chicken tenders and I make him a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. I loved it and I set about making the contacts and the preparations.  

Yesterday, the other boy's family called and said they were so sorry but they had a family emergency in Phoenix and would have to cancel. We told them we totally understood but it was one of the rare occasions where TJ actually did show how disappointed he is. When he told me how sad he actually was because this was the first year he wasn't going to see his two closest cousins on his birthday--it about broke my heart. 

As tough as reddit was on me for my first few months of being a member, that site can come through. I posted on the Tucson reddit that we were in a crunch and needed some ideas for a last minute kids birthday activities. It wasn't even 15 minutes and I had well over 20 responses with ideas. One that didn't even occur to me is taking him to the huge air museum we have here. He and Bubs have already been 5 times and bought a membership but the reddit thread made me realize how special it would be for him if he could act as a tour guide for me and Abby. When we told him we'd take him to the Air Museum, then to a pizza/game place and if anyone had energy we could go to a trampoline park he was over the moon excited. 

He instantly started telling me how awesome it is that we'll get to see Russian airplanes because not many museums have them. I didn't quite know why but on the 35 minute trip to the museum he talked our ears off about how he can't wait to show us the difference between how the Russians and Americans put their planes together and how when we stand up close you can really see that the Russians didn't care about little details and their planes were so much harder to work on but that they were also a lot cheaper and lots of other countries bought them. I love the kid so much and I tried to follow along but I'm not doing his dissertation of Russian and US airplane manufacture any justice. 

And when we got there, did he ever deliver on showing us what a little expert he is. There was a US Navy Blue Angel plane that was a competitor to the Russian Mig-29 (thank you Bubs helping me with the details) and we walked back and forth between those two planes about 10 times so TJ could show me all the details about why they look similar but "even you Mom can see the difference" and sure enough I could.  The Air Museum is huge so we were able to spend several hours with TJ as our tour guide and it made his day to be the expert. We let him pick out a model from the gift shop so he and Bubs are going to start working on that.  

After the Air Museum we went to Peter Piper Pizza (which I honesty thought was a Texas only thing) so it was nice to have something familiar (and yay! banquet party pizza that sits out too long and made of the "best" ingredients ---every pregnant mom's dream!). I figured it was going to cost us a fortune in all the games they would play but we did something like 18,000 steps at the Air Museum and the kids were tired and after just a few games and our pizza was done, they were ready to go home. 

My cake turned out delicious and we were able to 4 of the 5 cousins from back home to sing him happy birthday on Facetime.  TJ fell asleep really early and I was able to collapse into bed about 9 feeling very proud of myself that we made a special day for him. Abby made us promise that for her birthday party next Saturday all she wants to do is open mat at her Jiujitsu gym and the same cake I made for her brother--oh and "you can't cry mom, I'm too old for that." Can do kid, glad I can make both of my kids happy.