Today my oldest turns 4. I don’t really have the time to organize and post my thoughts but I figure while I eat lunch I will ramble on for a few minutes and hope they come together in a semi-coherent manner.
We didn’t do a kids party this year, and I’m feeling a little guilty. It is not that we didn’t celebrate. On Saturday we sponsored the kids Kiddish for Torah Tots at Beth Sholom and everyone sang him happy birthday in Hebrew. On Sunday we had a small family celebration. He got to open presents, blow out a birthday candle,and run around with his cousins. And on Friday Melissa and I are bringing in doughnuts and juice to school for a third celebration. But last year we had a real party for him with all of his friends. We had it at a kids gym, and it was incredible; everyone had so much fun. It was also expensive and more money that we wanted to spend this year, especially since Joshua wanted a new iPod. I broke his old one (Yes, the 30 something year old broke it, not the three year old. ), and it really is an amazing learning tool. I had an old iPhone 3G I was planing on ebaying, so we gave Joshua a choice between a new (to him) iPhone and a big birthday party. Not surprisingly my child picked the iPhone, so I jailbroke it, popped out the sim card and voila.
For the record I know this child is not deprived. He has more toys than 10 kids could play with, and gets three opportunities to be celebrated and have his birthday acknowledged this year. More importantly he is in a loving, happy and healthy family. While I don’t normally feel a need to keep up with the Jones, a part of me still feels a bit guilty that I know most of his friends with have big birthday celebrations.
