So I was recently at a birthday party for a toddler.

It was a family friend.

I don't have a toddler right now.

But it really brought me back to toddler birthday parties with one of my kids.

And they were so painful.

I'm going to tell you the arc.

Okay?

My kid would always start the morning of, I'm not going to this birthday party.

I don't want to go.

And too many people.

And I think back then, if I really am honest, I just got really activated.

I was just like, it's not a big deal.

You know all these kids in your class or you know your cousin or you know this gymnastic place,

whatever it was.

It would always kind of be some fire.

I would get frustrated.

I'd kind of go like this

internally. Like, we'd get there. My child would cling to me as if I don't even know. There was

some like massive threat of my child being abducted and taken from me, even though we were almost

always in a situation with people we knew and in an environment she knew. I'd feel annoyed. Eventually, she would join the birthday party. And it would usually be with like

five minutes left of the activity. And then sure enough, it was like pizza and cake. And then my child

would come back to me hysterically crying that the birthday party was so short.

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