She's Two- does she really need that party?

T.D. turns two on Sunday. It's T.D. the 2.0 version. As the date draws near I have begun to feel real anxiety about my lack of planning for her big day. There will be no party. Only cake. No balloons, no company invading our home for hours with little tykes to hurl cake around. We’ll take pictures as she blows out the candles, if she even does that and we’ll make a fuss, but that is all.

We thought about taking her to lunch but her favorite eatery, except Chick Fil A is closed on Sundays. We thought about a lot of things and came to the decision that we not only wouldn't go nuts on a party but we would not be buying her loads of presents. Christmas was only two months ago.

When I look at what we’ve bought her thus far for presents I feel like I’m looking at birthday gifts from the Depression- underpants, crayons, a book, and a pair of shoes.

Except during the Depression this would have been a cornucopia of presents.

H & I made this decision months ago. It is not so much taking the route of having an “un-birthday” or ignoring the day, but, she's two. We did the whole big birthday thing when she was one and while it was cute it was also a whole lot of planning for the adults. I don’t remember my second birthday except I know I had cake due to a photograph. T.D. won’t remember, I tell myself, so why go through all the fuss? The fuss is for us, the adults at this point, not the kids.

Do we make the fuss for others to show how much we care for our kids? To show how much we have and what we can do? That's not any party I want to go to.

When I discussed this point of view with others I got a lot of mixed reviews. Some people thought this was a wise idea because the more we do now as parents for these parties sets us up for our kids expecting and then demanding overblown, ridiculously expensive parties as they get older. Mtv's Sweet Sixteen anyone? Others disagreed and stated that we need to create these memories for later and they love hosting these events because they are fun. My inner anal planner loves this idea in theory until people start actually arriving at my door and I have to play hostess for a few hours. "You can't just ignore your kids birthday", people say. Still others felt that having something small with family is fine as long as we invite a few friends of T.D.'s over. Yeah, we're not going that route either.

Well what if we just have waffles for breakfast (a T.D. favorite), cake with dinner and invite no one but those of us who live in the house? Why is this a bad decision? Am I less of a parent because while I can afford to throw her some big party I choose not to? Am I depriving my child in this way? My thoughts are this, when she is old enough to understand what her birthday is then we'll go back to having parties (next year is my guess) but for now I think the Elmo underpants, cake with sprinkles and waffles for breakfast is how we are going to play it. At least I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

Riddle me this, aside from photos you might have seen of yourself, can you honestly say you remember your second birthday? I was apparently burned with scalding hot coffee on my arms right after I blew out the candles and I don't even recall that traumatizing event.