When you are one of six kids, your birthday is a big deal. It’s a special day, swirling with dreams of parties and gifts and being the star. It is one of the few days that you get to be the center of attention. I was very aware of the high stakes.

I tried to keep ahead of the hype by only having parties with friends every other year, and not starting slumber parties until age 10.  Even though I kept the festivities at a reasonable level, it was a feat of juggling to keep everybody’s parties, cakes, presents and expectations from crashing down.

My craziest birthday juggle was the June after my youngest was born. My kids’ birthdays are pretty evenly spaced, with the exception of the two June babies,  who are two years and one day apart.

The baby was three months old when my daughter turned five one day and my son turned three the next day. I had the brilliant idea to have two parties at once. For some reason, likely related to sleep deprivation and hormones, it seemed like a good plan.

We had a butterfly-themed party for my daughter and all her friends, and a truck-themed party for my son and all his friends at the same time. On the same day, in the same house. The main entertainment was a little plastic swimming  pool, a slip n’ slide and some sprinkler toys in the back yard. It might have worked beautifully if it hadn’t been overcast and chilly that day.

My oldest daughter made a cute  butterfly cake for the girls’ party, cutting a  9×13 cake into pieces and arranging them on a platter to look like wings. Decorated with frosting and candies, it was a sparkly, girly cake.

There was supposed to be a Twinkie in the center for the body, but I forgot to buy it;  we had to make a last-minute substitution. She was devastated that her creation wouldn’t be perfect, and made me promise never to reveal the terrible secret: We used a frozen fish stick instead of a Twinkie. Covered with frosting, no one knew, and we whisked it away before anyone could take a bite of it. (Sorry honey–it was time we came clean.)

The cake for the boys party was a little easier to pull off–we made a chunky chocolate cake and pudding concoction, loaded it up into a big, clean plastic Tonka dump truck and had a  Dirt Dump Cake that the little boys loved.

My mother came to help me feed everybody lunch, oversee the water fun, keep the gift-opening activities on track and hold the baby. I don’t remember much of the party, but I do remember my mother after everyone finally left, stretched out on the couch, sleeping with the baby in her arms.

There were many more parties over the years–scavenger hunts, bowling parties, park barbecues, ceramic-painting parties, Build-a-Bear trips, and even a food-drive party, with all the gifts donated to charity. At the end of  every birthday, I felt a sense of relief; whether all the birthday dreams had come true or not, we made it through.

By the time they got to high school, parties by mom were replaced by activities with friends, and I was more often the driver than the planner. Some of the older kids wanted to have a dinner and special evening alone with the parents–their birthday wish was some undivided time. Our household got smaller as the kids moved out, and the preferred birthday celebration became  just getting the family together for dinner and cake.

For some reason, birthdays bring with them expectations that are hard to even name; there’s a sense that something grand should happen to  mark the day, that it should be an especially fine day, full and happy. Too often, there are tears of disappointment or hurt rather than that glowing warmth that I want them to feel. It’s impossible to create a perfect day for them. The best I can do is try to tell them how loved and important they are to us with parties and gifts and songs.

Even though it’s hard to squeeze it into a busy day sometimes, I also try to tell them again the story of the day they were born. That, after all, is what we are celebrating, and for me and my husband, those days were as close to perfect as we can imagine.