I'm working on escaping from that sort of thing. I grew up with the perfect mother who could make anything, do anything, and usually on one night's notice because I never mentioned anything till the day before. I tend to feel very inadequate because I just can't do anything as well as I remember that Mom did when I was little--which in all probability was not as perfect as I remember it!
DS's birthday is tomorrow, but I work tomorrow, so we celebrated it today, and I have been sick since Friday. We didn't have any kids over, and for the first time in my life I actually BOUGHT a birthday cake--I'm very proud of me!
I just couldn't get up the energy to make and then decorate a cake this time.
To be fair, the kid is getting about 5 different days of birthday this year--he got his big present a month and a half ago, a desk which we expected to be backordered and wasn't, so it came early. Then he has today with the presents and cake, tomorrow the actual birthday, whatever day we end up doing something at school (I will make cupcakes for that), and next weekend when his godparents will do a cake and stuff for him. Ought to be enough birthday for anybody, even if it didn't have any perfect mom stuff to it!
We got him the "Heart of Mathematics" textbook that somebody here recommended, "Murderous Maths", a Calvin & Hobbes book, his own copy of "Why Pi" so he can stop wearing out the library one, a Perry the Platypus t-shirt, the Super Mario game he wanted, and a Periodic Table shower curtain that now hangs over his bed and will probably keep him awake for the rest of the school year.
