The Gregarious Growler: Graci's Birthday (and parental guilt)

We learned a valuable lesson this year in scheduling and parenting. The end of April is packed with all the activities people try to get out of the way in order to free up the month of May, the month of end-of-the-school-year madness. First, Mommy scheduled the Let's Play Music recital for Saturday, the 27th, the day after Graci's birthday. No big deal, I thought. I can still have her party on Friday, her actual birthday. Or if I have to, during the day on Saturday. Come to find out Peter had a merit badge clinic all day Saturday. The tradition has become to have a scout camp-out at our house the night before so Peter has more control over getting the boys there on time. We missed some communication on this and the fact that it was going to be Graci's birthday. Being the super-genius that I am I came up with an alternate plan: A camp-out birthday! I would be great, we would roast s'mores and the girls could sleep in the camper. So what if there were a couple of boy scouts there to celebrate along with us?
Thankfully Graci's friend Conrad could attend and we were able to create a delicious s'more cake. Unfortunately because I ended up not having time for a big party (I was kind of relieved until Graci started to realize her birthday was not as exciting as last year, mainly because of the severe reduction in gifts) I felt like I was constantly attempting to make her party sound even better than it was, which made me just feel plain guilty for having put her special day lower on the priority list. Add to this a last-minute conference Peter attended and my stress level combined with the guilt was enough to cure me of any future birthday mishaps--I hope. To make matters worse, it was drizzly, so the campfire had to be under the barn and everyone was decked out in their sweaters trying not to catch a cold. It was really fun to see the girls chasing the scouts around the yard, though.