Parental Guilt

Today we were supposed to celebrate our second child's, Slate, first birthday.

For our first son, Tyson, I spent weeks planning and preparing to make sure every detail was planned just perfect.

For Slate I spent two weeks. I searched Pinterest for cake ideas, decided on one in about 5 minutes and headed to the store for supplies.

With Tyson I spent the entire day before the party (with the help of a friend) making 50+ sugar cookies all hand decorate with homemade icing that had 1 on them, wrapped in clear wrap with ribbons for thank you treats. I baked for hours and hand decorated a special cake. I took weeks making a hand stitched happy birthday and ONE banner. I printed photos and made a month by month photo banner and handmade Martha Steward inspired Pom-Pom balls.

For Slate's party I spent 2 half days making and decorating a sprinkle cake and in a desperate attempt at some type of decorations threw together a fabric scrap banner and a very quickly stitched ONE banner.

The day of Slates party he woke up with a fever and throwing up. Party canceled.no celebration with friends/family, no cake to share, no happy birthday song, just cuddles with the baby all day.

Yes, we will reschedule the party but the crowd will be just family as everyone is so busy, yes we can get a new cake (I don't have time or patience to make another one), and yes he will still receive gifts, just not all at one time. There will be no photos of the crowd or time spent decorating. There will be no photos of my beautiful cakes being served. There will be a very obvious difference in the family photo album.

The point to all this? It's the parental guilt I feel (and I guess that other moms if more than one child feel) when the first child seems to outshine the second. I never want my Slate to doubt my love for him it's our job as parents to show them in other ways that cakes and gifts are not the only signs of love.

Tonight myself, my husband, Tyson and Slate and I will have a nice dinner and then the three of us will sing to Slate and let him smash his cake and eat huge slices of a cake that was made to serve 30 people. We will show him how special and how big our love is.