My Momentary Beef with Toys R Us, a Movie, First World Problems, and the Real Reason for My Birthday Planning Obsession

If you have been following along here (or on twitter) you might have noticed a few teeny tiny mentions of my daughter’s first birthday, which… ok isn’t until June.  I somehow can’t seem to shake my desire to throw confetti and sparkles all over the place in anticipation of Emma’s first. So, after some deep meditation and thought I have finally psychologically dissected the reasoning behind my birthday planning obsession and it took a first world problem for me to figure it out.

I should back track a little bit to explain my day yesterday. It was your typical Sunday; laundry and grocery shopping and oh yeah me OBSESSING over finding a kiddie tent. Yes, A. Kiddie. Tent. So you see last week I had been doing some non-type A /borderline crazy, two and a half month ahead of time birthday shopping for Emma when I stumbled upon the idea to get a play tent for her first birthday. It would be cheaper and easier to handle than a big bulky playhouse and my sister and I had a tent when we were growing up and loved it. I have very fond memories of our plastic little tent house to this day. I did some searches and found one on the Toys R Us site, on sale! Not only was it on sale, the majority of the reviews sang its praises! There were even several posts on there that said it made a great gift for one year olds! I was sold! I noticed however, peculiarly on the side of the website page, that it listed the item as only available in stores, which to me is odd for this day in age because usually if you see it on the internet, it is available to PURCHASE on the internet. Anyways, no big deal, I would head over to the store the next day. I almost called to make sure that they had it ahead of time but I had just called Michael’s the day before to see if they still had the decorations I liked and they said they were sold out, only for me to go into the store later on anyway to find that LOW and BEHOLD there were shelves full of said decorations. Hmmm. So needless to say my trust in retail say-so was at an all-time low.

Anyways, we headed off to the store and here I am the giddiest of all. We get there and end up searching in every corner of the store for my prized tent to no avail. My giddiness quickly turned to major disappointment. I looked as long as I could, hoping that the tent would just magically appear in the center of the store with a giant glowing arrow with my name on it. Finally, out of desperation to not walk down the Barbie isle for the third time, my husband broke down and asked someone who confirmed my fears… that my precious tent was nowhere to be found in the store. Naturally the only thing left to do was come close to throwing a mommy tantrum but I figured since we were in Toys R Us, a location that is hyper sensitive to tantrums, that if I threw mine it would ignite a chain reaction of horrible tantrums throughout the store, which could eventually come full circle to my child. I held myself together but, when we got home I called their customer service to find out that only a handful of stores in the country carried the tent. Thus my hopes were dashed and I felt like a failure as a fun awesome birthday planning mom. What’s worse, I spent hours later on in the day searching for another tent that was the equivalent of the first one, but of course nothing compared.

Fast forward to last night, my husband had been dying to see Zero Dark Thirty and since we never get out to the movie theater I told him we should definitely stream it. (I was also enthused to see the work of Kathryn Bigelow.) So after we put Emma down, we turned on the movie. Everyone knows the story behind Zero Dark Thirty so I guess it’s pretty obvious that the film showed torture, death, and the amazing perseverance of a female CIA agent (yes intelligent female lead!) It took a little while to sink in but here was a story of real people, soldiers, CIA agents, and families that endure so many hardships and terrifying situations every day. I couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to live in the Middle East right now, or ever for that matter. Then I thought about my ridiculous quest to find a play tent. What a waste of a day! What a waste of energy! I could have done so much more with myself. I could have done so much more to benefit my child, but instead I was on some idiotic rampage to hunt down a colorful piece of plastic tarp. I mean it all just seemed so surreal. My first world problem was laughable, downright forgettable compared to what others have to go through.

Which lead me to break down the reasoning behind my need to overly obsess about planning a party that, in all honesty, my kid won’t remember.  After some thought, the reason hits me…we made it. We are going to make it to one year with our sweet little love. It is an achievement and therefore reason to celebrate. A celebration for my husband and I (for making it through) but more importantly, a celebration that we get the privilege to share this time with our daughter. Simply put, we are able to celebrate our daughter’s first birthday with her when others aren’t. Time is not promised and I know several mothers (including my own) who had children that did not make it to their first birthday, so we will celebrate and enjoy ourselves every year because you never know what is going to happen. I will always be an overly enthusiastic birthday party thrower, but after my first world problem mommy lesson, I will know when to keep myself in check and remember what the day is all about, the celebration of life.