We'll Always Have New Year's Eve

Ah, New Year's Eve.  Together with Valentine's Day, these are the 'holidays' that have always haunted me.  At some point, I shed my expectations for the fake holiday that is Valentine's Day.  I truly felt at some point that it was a horrible excuse of a day where people just felt bad about themselves, or made others feel badly about their forced displays of affection.  I also hated how it somehow made it okay to ignore telling someone you love them the other 364 days of the year, as long as your sacrificial offering to Hallmark, florists or jewelers was somehow 'enough.'  I wasn't always immune, there were plenty of times that I pined away for a boyfriend, or just to not feel alone.  But now I'm married, and we don't even exchange a card, because that is how we want it.
New Year's Eve though.....that's the one that still retains its mythical proportions in my head.  The impossible standards of THE MOST FUN EVER!!!!!  All while you look glamorous and so very.....very.......these ideas have been sold to me at some point.  It probably doesn't help that I have actually had quite a few really wonderful New Year's Eves.  Or maybe it's the idea that saying goodbye to the old and ringing in the new is a great idea.  That reflection and hope are things I don't really want to lose.  I can be honest enough with myself to know that most NYE plans never measure up to the great party in my head.  My best NYE's have been wonderful because of where I was, and who I was with.  Nowadays on any given December 31st, I can be found at home, on the couch, perhaps remembering to have some wine (or even actual champagne, ooh la la) at the appointed hour.  But this is the holiday on which I choose to pin my future hopes.  I've outgrown Valentine's Day, and maybe I've outgrown what makes NYE so terrible as well. I know that it doesn't have to be at a cool club or bar, and it definitely doesn't have to involve drinking too much.  For me, it just has to involve being with those I love, laughing, and having a good time, no matter what my circumstances are.  I like to think back over the last year, and feel nostalgic, silly and just plain glad it's over.  Just as I like to think forward to the new year, so full of hope, and sometimes impossible expectations.  It's a good thing to review the past, not to sit and wallow in it, and then to move on to what we want most for ourselves next.  Nothing wrong with that at all.  And there's nothing wrong to hope that in the future I will be in a fabulous place, like I was when I lived in Europe for three wonderful NYE celebrations, or with wonderful people, like I was when I witnessed 1999 turn into 2000.  I like that feeling of hope.  And the fact that for New Year's Eve there are relatively few Hallmark cards.  So long 2012, you were very good to me.  And greetings 2013, I can't wait to see where we go this year.

The Ill-Prepared Mom

So now that I am writing something about my son's upcoming fourth birthday, I realize that as my last post was something to do with his third birthday, I am now an annual blogger.  So I have that going for me.  At any rate, just put Boy 1 into preschool this last week, and while that was an adventure in and of itself, it is only now that I sit down and put fingers to keyboard.  Because I have a major bone to pick with the very blank parenting manual I received after I had this kid (it was completely blank, which seemed kind of weird at the time, and not any better now).  In the general guidelines for his preschool, it states that they do celebrate birthdays, and that I, as a parent (seriously, people better stop calling me that), can bring in any non-food item.  This is, of course, due to the fact that children today have weird food allergies that we had never even heard of when I was a kid.  If you would have told younger me that it was possible for children to not only have an allergy to peanuts, but in fact for them to have a deadly allergy to peanuts, it probably would have rocked my tender world order.  I asked the teacher what the status quo was for parents bringing in things, hoping for something specific ("they bring in one balloon." or "thick-rimmed cosmetic eye glasses are all the rage if you want your child to not be ostracized here and for the other parents to be kind to you and let you back out of your parking space upon dropping off/picking up your child."  Anything along these lines would have been fabulous), and got the whole, well, they bring in pretty much anything.  She also added that as none of these kids have food allergies (they're a vintage class apparently) it was okay to bring in cupcakes, etc.  As tempted as I was by the cupcake suggestion, I was also raised to be very scared and obedient of certain types of authority, and well, I just can't go against the written guidelines without having anxiety-inducing hallucinations of the entire scenario where I try to explain to the administration that 'the teacher SAID it was okay.....'  So now I am left with the generic description of 'pretty much anything' to bring along in goody bag form.
Now, there must be a fine art to real parenting.  Really knowing what will make other kids and parents happy......but I am not one to hone this particular 'craft.'  So I resort to the dollar section at Target, hoping for inspiration, or maybe another couple of moms having a conversation about the perfect goody bag contents.  After I purchased my items and began immediately worrying about whether it was too much, not enough, or the wrong thing, I went online to confirm my mental illness of wanting to fit in and not rock the boat with other moms.  Sure enough, according to the internets, every mom hates goody bags.  Doesn't want their kids to get them anymore, has never seen a goody bag with good stuff, it's a waste of trash space, money, time......so that's encouraging.  I will say that almost everything that seems to be marketed towards goody bags is probably something that will either make other kids or other moms hate you.  Alternately, or simultaneously.  Bouncy balls?  Why don't I just give their kids a BB gun already and tell them to go at it?  Bouncy balls are a recipe for broken household items, black eyes, and possible car accidents (don't ask me the details, my pessimistic mind can come up with at least three different ways in which bouncy balls will cause a major car crash).....so I passed on those.  Those sticky hands?  Sure, kids love them, but even I hate those things.  My brand of OCD cannot stand seeing all the dog hair that immediately sticks to them upon opening the package.  Parachute men?  Yeah, I don't know if your four year old is the oldest or youngest or middlest child at your house, but at my house I have an almost 18 month old who has a deep desire to hurt himself with anything that could possibly be used to strangle or choke.  Things that make noise, a mess, or could possibly have been put together solely using some sort of cancer causing red paint from China......moms are not going to like me.  Books, anything that smells like learning....my kid is going to get the stink eye.  When did it become so complicated?
My brother and I had summer birthdays, so I never really had to worry about my birthday party being a topic of discussion at school.  Which had its upsides and downsides.  But I don't remember my mom ever agonizing over any of these things.  Which isn't to say that she did not agonize, just that she, in her wisdom, did not bring her child into the thought processes that would drive anyone crazy.  Over a four year old's birthday goody bags.  I'd like to think it's going to get easier, but if these last four years have taught me anything (and everybody knows that there's nothing like failure and defeat to teach a lesson), it's that it's only going to get harder and more complicated.  I hope these kids and their moms like the crayons, pads of paper and wooden clackers that I bought (um, yeah, I'm pretty sure the moms will not like the clackers, but, hey, not everything is my problem), and that I have not committed any sort of goody bag faux pas, but at the same time I hate myself for even caring one ounce.