Horrible Mom

I'm a horrible mom. Just horrible. Poor Liam is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to birthday party planning.

His first birthday is Friday (can you believe he's already one?!?) and we're just now pulling all the party plans together. And sadly, we're only putting about a third of the effort we put into Sydney's first birthday into Liam's big day.

For Sydney's first b-day, we held a crawfish boil and invited about 30 people to join us in the celebration. Ryan labored over the crawfish (several hours of prep and cook time) and I made the side dishes, made a homemade birthday cake and hung decorations everywhere. We had everything planned down to the last detail a good three weeks before the event. Everything went off without a hitch, except that the cake I made melted in the humidity and looked absolutely horrible, hence my vow to never make another birthday cake as long as I lived.

For Liam's first b-day, we're having barbecue (since crawfish are out of season) and inviting about 20 people to join us. Ryan is going to be buying the already prepared barbecue from a local restaurant and I'm going to make the sides. I ordered Liam's cupcake-cake today and while I have balloons to hang for decoration, I have no "goody bags" prepared for our tiny guests. And I'm not going to prepare goody bags, either, because if their parents are like me, they don't want a bag full of trinkety crap to bring home from yet another party.

I feel so bad that we're not putting in as much effort into Liam's party. I wonder if it's truly "second child syndrome" or if we've just gotten lazy over the past few years.

Probably a little bit of both.