School Girl came up with a couple of the games herself, and those went over very well indeed. One of the most successful games happened by accident last year – the Balloon Battle. This year I moved the sharpest pieces of furniture well out of the way, so nobody got hurt. The “pin-the-mic-on-Hannah” game was a good one too.

Our cake was disappointingly small, but very tasty (I hear). There was plenty of pizza and lemonade to take up the slack, so nobody went home starving. It never fails to surprise me how a group of 7-and-8-year-old girls can eat…

In short, all the kids seemed to have a great time, School Girl got a bunch of really nice presents, and it was easily the fastest 2 hours I’ve experienced in ages. And School Girl gets to do this all again next week, for a friend’s birthday/sleepover.

The next day, School Girl woke up with a hacking deep cough that made me run for the inhaler and K run for the phone. Our visit won’t be happening until next week.

Birthday Season usually starts about 4-5 weeks before School Girl’s birthday, and ends sometime around our “family day” 6 weeks later. I love it because we normally make a big deal about School Girl’s birthday. In the past it’s usually involved a party for her friends, a dinner of her choice and cake if her party’s not on her actual birthday, a ton of birthday phone calls, and presents. Oh, and a trip to the Most Expensive Teddy Bear Store in the Whole Damn World.

See the first thing on that list? That’s why I get queasy. For the past 2 years we’ve had birthday parties, here at home for a limited number of guests, with varying degrees of success. Last year was the toughest, as School Girl’s BFF couldn’t be there. She still had fun, as did the kids that were here. Of course, the first year had the Pinata From Hell. The one that should have come with a machete for easy opening. None of us, including the two adults at the party, could open the damn thing; I had to get out a kitchen knife and cut it open, making for some good times.

Most of School Girl’s family calls her for her birthday, either on the day or the day after. My parents and my sister (well, last year her daughters and School Girl did most of the talking), K’s brother’s wife, and C. M has called…I want to say twice, possibly? I don’t think it’s been any more times than that. Not on her birthday. I know it’s a difficult time for M. I do. But I think School Girl misses her on that day. Just to talk to her for a few minutes on any day is a big deal, and we try to encourage that. She’s never said that she’s upset when M doesn’t call, but sometimes I wonder.

This year C has said that she’d like to do something with School Girl. I’ve brought it up once or twice, and it’s not gotten a good reception. Part of it has to do with her party – she wants to have it on the Saturday after her birthday, so that she can have a longer party. I thought it would be good to visit C on that Saturday, and she’s fighting that. There is one other solution, but I need to talk to School Girl before I bring it up with everyone else involved.

This is a topic that is very timely for me (Thanksgivingmom) right now, but is something that all of us in open adoption deal with at least once during the year: birthdays.

I know that birthdays can be an extremely emotional time, for everyone connected to adoption, not just those of us in open adoptions. So what is it that we do, as part of our open adoptions, during the “birthday season”?

Our experiences on this are so diverse, that I don’t want to limit your responses to one specific question. BUT, since some of us (like me!) sometimes like the specific questions, here are a few that have been rattling around in my brain as my daughter’s third birthday approaches:

* What do you/your family do to integrate open adoption and birthday celebrations?
* What do you wish you would see in future birthday celebrations re: involvement with your child’s adoptive parents/birth parents?
* Do you have an open adoption agreement that requires contact on/around birthdays?
* How does that agreement affect you? Do you wish it were different? Do you wish that you did have an agreement that requires such contact?
* If you do not have contact around birthdays, do you do something private to honor birthdays?
* If you’re an adoptee, how were birthdays celebrated in your family with regards to open adoption?
* How do you wish they would have been celebrated?
* And anything else you can think of!

Here goes.

Birthdays have been a difficult time for all of us, both at our home and (I understand) School Girl’s first family’s home. We’ve had some contact with M during that time (some of our visits were scheduled near her birthday, but not on her actual birthday) but more with M’s parents C & J (just C now).

Ever since School Girl has been able to use the phone for more than a handy teething toy, we’ve had phone calls from C & J. Well, mostly C. I think M has called one or two years, but didn’t this year. Winter in Colorado has affected our plans to visit on School Girl’s actual birthday; the weather is unpredictable, and we’ve had to reschedule visits before that happen around her birthday.

Our open adoption agreement didn’t mention birthdays specifically; just the number of times we were going to have visits during the first year, and how often we would send letters and pictures. Sometimes I wish it had. More often now that School Girl is older, I will admit.

As far as parties go, check the post below. We weren’t present at School Girl’s birth, but we do have pictures in her lifebook that show the time she was in the hospital with her family. Every so often she and I look at them, but I try not to limit that to birthdays.

Tribal Connection – Gogol Bordello
Hong Kong Garden – Siouxsie and the Banshees
Shake the Disease – Depeche Mode
Ramble On – Led Zeppelin
The Weakness in Me – Joan Armatrading
The Way You Do the Things You Do – The Temptations
Mercy – Duffy
Sin City – Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris
Wilderness – Joy Division
Love is the LawThe Suburbs
Bonus: Crimson and Clover – Joan Jett and the Blackhearts