So, it turns out I have issues and baggage and such. SHOCKER! OK, not really shocking, but birthday parties and the like seem to have the ability to knock 20 years off my life instantly. It's like the fountain of youth over here, complete with the insecurity and stupidity that comes with worrying about party lists.

The last time I had to figure out who to invite to a birthday party, I was about two feet shorter and walking around wearing green knee socks, clear jelly shoes, a pink skirt, and a purple sweatshirt. While you should be very grateful there are no photos of said fashion tragedy, I remember very clearly putting together a list of kids I wanted to invite to my birthday party and failing miserably at it. It was probably my 8th birthday, or so, and the one and only time I ever had a party. Because I screwed up the list. Like, really.

I wanted to invite all of the girls in my class. I listed them, wrote out the invitations, and realized I had one more invitation that I had names. No problem! I would just invite a boy!

WRONG.

I forgot a girl. Just one, but still. She knew I forgot her. I knew I forgot her. She was devastated. I knew she was devastated. There was no patching it or fixing it or whatever. I wasn't even smart enough to ask my parents to bail me out. I just snubbed her because it was easier.

I still feel like a jerk for it. See also: I have issues and baggage and such.

So when it came time to figure out who to invite to Alexis' first ever birthday party, I opened the closet, grabbed all that baggage, and set it down at the table beside us. I would have liked to have invited every single kid at her school, but this party is going to be at our house. As much as I would like to be super nice and avoid drama, I'd also like to still have a house next week. So, that idea was out. Then I thought we would just invite her class, but the darn kid complicated that issue by being smart enough to sometimes hang out with the class ahead of her. Really she's about 50/50 with two different groups. So, I was left with only one option--I made her decide who to invite.

"You can invite ten friends to your birthday party. Who would you like to invite?" I asked her.

Oblivious to the potential future social implications, she started rambling off a bunch of names. I quickly wrote them down. When we got to ten, I looked down at the list and went, "WOAH, WOAH, WOAH." She had named eight boys and two girls.

"Don't you ever play with any girls?" I asked. I really don't know why that mattered, it just seemed weird that a little kid would have been so lob-sided with her gender breakout.

We tweaked the list a little and then we tweaked it a little more. Then I realized I couldn't figure out where some of the kids she had listed had a mailbox at school (as in, I'm not sure one of the kids actually exists), so I kinda sorta substituted a few with kids whose boxes I was able to find. In the end, I felt like we had a pretty good list of the kids that she frequently talks about even when she's not at school.

Fast forward a few weeks and I realized I had not gotten any RSVPs. While I know I am a complete goobernugget about RSVPing for things, I still had that moment of flashing back twenty years to insecurity and drama. What if nobody showed up? OMG. FREAK OUT!

Of course, that was totally unfounded insecurity because the kid is already more popular than I could have ever hoped to be. She's oddly magical like that. People just suck about RSVPing. No big thing.

But then today came and, once again, I had to haul that luggage out of the closet. I checked the email account where I asked people to send their RSVPs AND THERE WERE THREE! I squeed. And then I wanted to punch myself in the face for being such a dork, but I'm really tired and that sounded like a lot of effort.

Thank goodness the kid is completely oblivious to all of this self-imposed drama I'm creating. Maybe by the time she has grown up enough to care what other people think, I'll have done a little growing up myself.