Sundays mean different things for different people. For some, it is a day of worship. For others, it is a day of rest. For me, Sundays hold dual meaning. It’s a doorway from one week to the next. It’s a culmination of the week behind me and the week ahead. On Sunday morning, I’m grateful that there’s one more day in the weekend–(typically) it’s not quite time to get back to work (although I do use the evening to scan email and gauge the work week ahead), but I’m also aware that there’s a brand new week right in front of me, filled with a multitude of possibilities. Or roadblocks. Or opportunities. Or headaches. It all depends on how I look at it.  And when I choose to see it as a fresh start or as an opportunity for new and better things, it feels like Sunday is a gift.

#SMC

A couple Sundays from now will truly be a gift for my daughter. To understand why, let’s take a trip back in time to just about any of my childhood birthday parties (of which there were maybe four). There were no bouncy houses involved. Or waterparks. Or dozens of people. Or trips to beaches. There certainly wasn’t a week of activities. And can someone please tell me when we started celebrating birthdays for an entire week?

There seems to be a new trend now where we (as parents) go overboard (present company included). I want to know, how did this happen?

Every year I tell myself we will “super celebrate” the milestone birthdays. Moving into double digits (although, this is a bit of a stretch), becoming a teenager (even though, really, a party should be thrown for the parent(s) because they’ve got dealing with the teen years to ahead of them ha!), turning 16 (this is a pretty big deal), and becoming 18 (for obvious reasons).

Somewhere along the way, though, every single birthday begets a blowout bash. When did this trend begin? And, more specifically, how–even though I tell myself I’m not going to do it–does this keep happening?

The answer may lie in how difficult my pregnancy was for me. And by difficult, I mean hospitalization nearly every week for the first three months. Remember a few years ago when duchess Kate Middleton was pregnant and had a condition called hyperemisis gravidarum? Well, I had the same condition. Only worse. It was so bad that I ended up having a PICC line inserted into my arm and up near my heart so that I could connect myself to an IV bag each night. This was so I wouldn’t become severely dehydrated from the constant vomiting that ensued almost every day during my pregnancy. Through my PICC line, I administered myself anti-nauseous meds and prenatal vitamins for nearly seven months.  I still have scars on my arm where the line was inserted.  It was quite the ordeal. And made for a really long nine months.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Two Sundays from now.

So instead of a simple day of just me and her going to do some fun activity (which I always say we’ll do), there’s now a rock climbing, zip lining, bunch-of-friends-from- school party planned. All of which I am the culprit.

But it is a gift. And so is she.

Any other parents out there experiencing this issue?