It's that time of year...

Summer tends to be a very busy season for the Cole family. Not only are the kids out of school and vacationing plans are in full swing, but it is also the season in which two of our children have birthdays a week apart: Solomon July 22nd and Kaidyn August 3rd. Because of this, I refer to this time of year quite commonly as the season of "birthday madness". For those of you who do not have children, or even for those of you who do but haven't reached this stage in their childhood, let me enlighten you on why this period often becomes my own personal version of hell.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kiddos and am more than excited to help them celebrate the day that they came into this world. As a new parent, the first few birthdays your child celebrates are filled with feelings of joy and celebration. Pictures of your little bundle of joy taking his first bite of cake, and subsequently wearing most of it, are proudly displayed on fb posts and alike for all your friends and family to see. Birthdays really don't start to become complicated until small gatherings of friends and family turn into larger gatherings of your child's school friends.

This is also usually the point in time when your child becomes very opinionated about the type of birthday party he or she wants to have, aka the party's theme. This can be the initial source of anxiety for many party-planning parents, as sometimes little Jonny's request is all but impossible to find. We've had some very unique parties in the past, including Winnie the Poo, Dora/Diego, Spiderman, Wolverine, and Under the Sea. More than one of these parties involved some creative online google-ing by yours truly in order to find select party supplies that just did not exist at the typical party supply store.

The second source of anxiety of party planning parents is the RSVPs, or the lack there of. I'm not real sure when it became acceptable to not RSVP to any party, let alone a child's birthday party in which numbers are typically needed for things like food, goodbags, etc but sadly, this has been the case in the past years. Summer is the worst time for parents to not RSVP, and because of this, I have spent countless amounts of time in the past calling each individual parent (at one point 20 parents!) to ask them if their child was, indeed, going to attend. In the end, many "yes" parents don't show up, only adding more fuel to my ever-growing frustration and irritation with said parent.

For all of these reasons, birthday madness becomes a point of my summer that I could go with out. So this year when the idea surfaced for our family to go to six flags over Georgia instead of having a large, anxiety-producing celebration, I was the biggest advocate. Luckily, the kids were more than happy to for-go a large party for the opportunity to go to six flags. Instead of a large party with themes and friends involved, they got a small, family celebration this past weekend. Presents were received (ipod touches- they were lovin it!). Cupcakes were eaten. There was no theme and RSVPs were unnecessary. The kids were happy. I was ecstatic. A simple party with zero stress= perfection. My only question is why don't we do this every year?