Now that we're completely on the other side of it, I can say with absolute certainty that sometimes we, the adults, are the ones who have bottles of disappointment sitting around and our kids don't care. If you take a few steps back, it seems AWFUL that this kid didn't get to have a birthday party.
Mila started planning that party a year ago, about ten minutes after her last one. She reminded me of that fact about 4000 times. But as we got closer, it was clear that a group gathering wasn't a great idea so I talked to Mila. I told her the truth. I explained that there were bad germs hurting people (she's little, y'all, and not quite ready for "virus" vs. "germs" discussions) so we couldn't safely have a lot of people get together. She had been hearing about the whole thing for weeks at that point and had enough context to process the whole thing.
A crazy thing happened - she understood. FUNNY THING, THAT. A small child who doesn't know the difference between a virus and a germ understood that it wasn't safe to have a party. Like, she fully understood. I did promise her a playhouse in place of a party, which obviously helped, but I still expected to get to Mila's birthday weekend and have her be devastated that she wasn't surrounded by a crowd. I was especially expecting it because there have been several kid birthday parties in our neighborhood the past month, several including large crowds and ice cream trucks and all sorts of chaos.
MIla didn't care at all.
What she did care about is that we took the time to decorate the house. She *loved* the balloons, especially the ones filled with confetti. She also was way excited about blowing out candles and being sung to.
It's almost as if kids define a successful "special day" pretty broadly while us adults are all IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY OR WAAAAAH.
Weird.