The Chatty Homemaker

Little Ruthie’s Birthday

Our little Ruthie Poothie had a birthday yesterday. It is so hard to believe that she is already seven years old. It seems like just yesterday, that Aaron was all but carrying me out to our car to drive me to give birth to her. He was half asleep and I was not ready. She was baby number four, and this was the first time that my water had broken on it’s own. That is a story for another time, though.

Yes, seven years does fly by when you enjoy watching them grow, and morph into different versions of themselves. Watching with amazement as they learn and explore new things. Although, some things never change. Like her passion and vibrancy. She is still the only baby I have ever known to cry if she did not have a hair bow on her head. Or, yell at sweet old ladies in the grocery store for simply looking at her. She was hard to miss, with those bigger than your face flowers on her head, and big, poofy, lace dresses. She often looked like more dress and accessories, than baby. That has not changed much.

Birthdays don’t have to be hard

One thing I have learned is that birthdays do not have to be hard. We keep birthdays around here as simple as we can. Even for divas. Ruth is cool with just about anything we would want to do with her, as long as she is the center of attention. Like I said before, some things never change. Most of our other kids prefer not to be in the lime light. Their birthdays are simple because they want it that way. Others would let us throw a party on the moon if we could. Ruth is one of those. She loves big elaborate parties, but is just as happy going simple. She’s pretty easy to please as long as she has everyone’s full attention and the people she loves.

We always invite immediate family, and maybe a friend or two, if we can, over for dinner on the kids actual birthday. We just either have a pizza bar, or chicken mac. Both are super easy and well loved by all. Then we do cake and ice cream of course. If we have time and ability, they have a separate day that they can invite a few others of their choice over, and we will wither do a little cake and ice cream party, or take them out to do something. Sometimes we will just go to the park. Other times we will splurge and go somewhere cool, such as CombatOps, or Rascals. For Ruth Aaron and I are going to take her out with us this Friday night to get pedicures. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when we pull up at the salon.

The BIG birthdays

For the bigger birthdays like, 10, 13, 16… we let the child decide what they want to do. Our kids are usually very reasonable, and usually just want to go to the park and hang out. We have a nice wooded park close to our house. That was where our eldest wanted to go for her sweet 16. But it ended up being so hot that no one wanted to be stuck outside that long. She prays for rain every birthday, but so far it hasn’t worked out for her.

Including them in the planning of their birthday party, even when they are young, I feel like helps them to feel like they have a little bit of control over their own life. It also shows them that you value their opinion and wishes. Ruth was so happy when I surprised her at the bakery counter. I told her to look through the book they have there and pick out her cake. Usually I try to sway her to pick something different than before. This time, though, I just watched as she flipped through the book. Her mouth hung open and eyes huge, with every flip of the page they got bigger and bigger. She really does get excited about pretty much everything.

Then she stopped. She looked up at me, and said, “Mommy, look. It’s the one.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at her as I said, “Baby girl, you have gotten that cake three times now.”

She told me that she knew that, and she didn’t want it this time she just wanted to see if I remembered. She sure is a hoot. She did finally decide on one and it was different from any other she had ever ordered. We were both happy.

She had a blast

Even though we didn’t do anything elaborate for her birthday, our little princess had a blast! She was the center of attention and loved every second. We had her favorite dinner, chicken mac. And she loved the cake too. I on the other hand did not. They raised their prices and the cake was dry. It was $55 for a quarter sheet cake. But at the end of the day she loved it, and it was not for me. I may have been the only one who thought that, too. The cake is gone. Of course, my kids finished it off for lunch today, but it is gone none-the-less.

My goal with their birthdays is to make sure they feel special and loved by the ones they love. Not to entertain, though I love to do that as well, but there is a time for that. My babies are very important to me and I have them for such a short time. I want that time to be as precious to them as it is to me. They are my second most important people. After all, they are going to leave me some day. You know who will still be right here with me, though? My amazing husband, my number one person. And together we are raising our children to put God as number one everything in their lives.

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