My two children are 23 months and 2 weeks apart...My DS's birthday --which is tomorrow December 7--comes after my DD's even though he's the oldest. As adults we think nothing of this. But children particularly young children just don't quite get it. Of course, I know this now but not when they were the "particularly young children that just don't get it".
One year when they were young, very young children --and when I had less than enough money (was there ever a year when that wasn't true?) I decided to hold their b-day parties together. I figured it was a good idea rather than invite the same family members and friends to another gathering just two weeks away. So I had their b-day celebrations together. I let them each invite their own friends. I ordered a cake for each one of them. (DD's was a Barbie cake and DS' was ET - you know the Extra Terrestial?) We sang "happy birthday" twice - once for each of them. So you can surely see that I was treating them as individuals right? WRONG! When my DS's b-day rolled around two weeks later, he wanted to know when his party was going to be. There was no explaining that his party had been on the same day as his sister's party - that he and his sister had celebrated together. He didn't get it that the two cakes, the two songs, the two sets of friends, meant two parties. I guess in his mind two parties also meant two days!
Maybe it was because it wasn't near his birthday...geez what's two weeks?! Maybe it was because it was before DD's birthday ...which if you think about it (apparently only if you think about it as an adult) it was also before his...but whatever the reason ...he felt for quite some time that he didn't have a party that year.
What can I say? I tried.
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