This was supposed to be the most magical of birthdays.
Aniston and I had been planning it for months.
It was special because it was her golden birthday.
She was turning 5 on the 5th.
The only reason Ani knew what a golden birthday was,
was because I had mine this year as well.
I was so excited to be able to celebrate her and to make it everything GOLDEN!
We picked out a beautiful dress for pictures.
We spent several hours making invitations and deciding who to invite.
We decided on the most perfect pinata and party spot.
We decided to have her party on a Saturday because she wanted Spencer to be there of course,
and because we thought that that was the best day to invite people to a party.
We choose to invite entire families to the party,
not just kids because we wanted everyone to feel included and special.
Kind of ironic.
A few days before her birthday she took the most GORGEOUS pictures.
Yes,
I am probably biased,
but she did so well!
She doesn't always love to take pictures so I was so happy.
Her pictures turned out perfect!
Her actual birthday day was AWESOME!
She wore her new ginormous (the bigger the better) golden bow,
she picked all of her meals according to her favorite foods,
she opened her presents from me, Spencer, and Benson,
and we did everything that she loves to do!
Swimming with cousins (well my cousins, but they are in her generation and she LOVES them),
glow in the dark golfing,
and playing at the play place at a fast food restaurant (I may or may not never let her do that. They are just so gross).
Poor Benson had a tough time understanding that it was not his birthday...
She was so happy and so excited for her party with her family and a couple friends.
I'm probably not as good as I could be about play dates....
Plus ever since we moved to Utah she couldn't stop talking about how excited she was to invite her cousins and Grandma and Grandpa to her party.
She had actually been excited for that since we found out that we were moving to Utah.
And since we have a lot of family in the area it was really exciting.
She was in heaven about it.
She chose to invite a couple friends,
not family,
which is always terrifying to me (because I'm always sure that friends won't come. But family always does right),
but she was confident that it would be the best party ever.
The party never happened.
I had to cancel my beautiful and optimistic daughter's special golden birthday party.
A party that will never happen again because she will never have another golden birthday.
And I had to explain it to her.
Lucky for me,
she is forgiving and sweet and willing to let me buy her whatever she wanted at the store to make up for it.
I may or may not have lied to her about why we canceled it.
Can you blame me?
After I spent several hours making invitations that Aniston designed,
and paid to mail them to people who Aniston very carefully selected,
turns out none of her family was coming.
Except for my Mom who was even planning on driving down for the day just for the party.
An 8 hour total drive,
just to spend a couple hours at Aniston's special party because she understood how special of a day it was suppose to be.
I didn't find out from RSVP,
like I had requested on the invitation,
but I found out when I asked my husband what was going on.
My cousin's had a fantastic reason for not being able to come.
An unexpected death of a young and very close family friend and a funeral that needed to be attended.
I understand that because I knew this person and understood their relationship,
and we had talked about it 4 days before the party so I knew and was expecting that.
Aniston even understood this because I did explain that to her.
Plus we got to go swimming with them on her actual birthday which made her day!
She loves those cousins so much!
And you guys,
the mother of our friend who passed,
even sang a song to Aniston,
a special 5-year-old song in the midst of the hardest time of her life.
My mother's heart just swells with gratitude and love because I know that I couldn't have done that in her situation.
Her strength is so inspiring.
But you guys...
I'm having a really hard time with this.
Obviously,
Aniston isn't,
she is way more forgiving than I am,
but the Mama Bear in me is so pissed and I feel totally disrespected because not one of those family members RSVP'd to me like requested.
I am devastated.
I had such amazing expectations and excitement for this party.
Like I said,
we had spent months planning it.
Pinterest can confirm this.
I even had a 10k planned for the morning of the party,
but the party was so important to Ani that I was willing to run that race,
the longest race I had ever run,
that I knew would be crazy brutal on my body,
and get her entire party going as well.
The friends (not family) that we had invited were so sweet and kind about the cancellation.
Aniston has been blessed with good friends thank goodnesss.
But what do I do now?
I have so much anger and I am so upset.
Even though Ani handled it like a champ,
she was sad.
And that's not okay to me.
I can be very loyal to family,
when I feel as though it is reciprocated.
If a feel disrespected and like my time,
my money,
my thoughts,
and my children aren't respected,
game over.
I don't want to feel this way.
But right now I just can't help it.
It's so real and new and raw and infuriating.
And people wonder why I have such low self-confidence and low self-esteem.
It's because I truly feel like people don't care because of situations like this.
My family isn't worthy of your time?
Even on my daughter's special day?
I don't know what we will do next year for her party.
I'm not even sure I want to have one at all because of this situation.
No child should ever have their party canceled because no one wants to come.
But I feel conflicted...
If I don't invite family I'm pretty sure I will hear all about it and be considered mean and rude.
But if I do invite family it's obvious that we are not important enough to come.
Where's the balance?
What do I do.
I am not a good enough person to keep trying when I know I am going to get torn down.
If I knew I would have to deal with this,
I never would have invited them.
It's tearing me apart and causing bigger problems than it should.
It's unacceptable to me.
You just don't mess with kids.
Fool me once,
shame on you.
Foolw me twice,
shame on me.
Anyway,
Aniston is 5 now.
She is excited about it and tells everyone how old she is now.
I love her so much.
She made me a mom!
She is so sassy,
insanely smart,
incredibly strong,
wonderfully kind,
and just perfect!
No one can push my button like she can,
but no one gives hugs and loves the way that she does.
I am so lucky to be her Mom.
I will always protect her,
and I will always stand up for her.
I love you Aniston Kate!!!
Happy 5th Birthday!!!
