Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Dilemma, dilemma...

So... my daughter is quite the social butterfly for a little girl who has lived in this country a little under 6 months.

She has been invited to two birthday parties on March 1st. At pretty much the same time.

And now I have a dilemma. Which is this:

The first invitation is for a little girl A. A's older brother is a friend of Stuart's and is in his class. He came to Stu's birthday, they hang out, they are starting to go to Beavers together. A is becoming friends with Julia, they made each other sweet valentines and I had to change Julia's registration for JK to mornings (we had chosen afternoons) because A is going in the morning. And she HAS to go to school with A.

I accepted invitation 1 this afternoon after school.

The second invitation came picking up Julia from nursery school. It was not a formal one, though the cards are on their way tomorrow apparently. And it's for M's birthday. Now M is Julia's BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD. She loves her. M loves Julia. They have great playdates. Party 2 is going to be (if they have stuck to the plan that was vaguely referred to about 6 weeks ago) about 1/2 hour out of town in the country. With a horse. Because M loves horses.

Hmmm. You may be asking what my problem is. Well, as usual I am over thinking the entire thing.

On one hand I want Julia to go to party #1 because - wait for it, here comes the slew of reasons, in no particular order - Stu has been invited to come along if he wants (he does), I think it would be good for Julia to meet other little ones from our neighbourhood, the mother of this child had Julia over for a play-date on a weeknight so I could go to Parents night at Beavers with Stu (Marc was away) - all of these are things I want to cultivate. The fact is I can see us having a lot to do with this family over the next few years.

And yet... I feel badly if Julia misses her best friend's party. At the same time realizing that M is starting full day JK next year and I am not sure if we will be able to get together much.

I know. Too much thought. I am sure my parents never deliberated this much over my social life when I was going on 4!

(P.S. - this isn't going to keep me up, I'm not taking it THAT seriously!!)

3 comments:

Lisa Wheeler Milton said...

Oh - it begins. The foster boy down the way - that tugs at my heart strings - had a birthday party, giving us only a couple of days notice.

We had already accepted an invitation for a little boy that used to be in Zack's special ed program, someone that still struggles to speak, yet always says 'Zack'.

We went to the party we'd committed to, but I felt bad.

(We did give a gift to the other boy, a month earlier, on the day.)

Greg just shrugged and said: 'You can't be everywhere.'

He's a genius.

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

Oi-yoi. Tricky indeed. I'd go with the one you've committed to already, and then arrange a special post-birthday playdate for Julia and M during which the present can be given, etc...

lapoflux said...

Men seem to have a much easier time making these decisions don't they?
Actually Julia too - she wants to go to A's party. Plain and simple.
But since M's party is in town we're going there for an hour and being 15 minutes late for the other. I really make my life difficult sometimes ;-)