Celebration

Today is the kids' birthday party, as you know from numerous lead-ins. It's a day to have fun and celebrate. Eat, play, talk with friends.

But they are not the friends I've come to expect at our birthday parties. For the first time, the members of our original playgroup were not invited. While I still see some of their moms, we almost never seen any of the kids, who are spread out in different schools and even different grades in more than one town. Even during preschool, we invited their playgroup buddies to our summer birthdays instead of their classmates.

This year, however, we invited the 40 kids in their two kindergarten classrooms. Only one of these children was in our playgroup. I know most of the guests by sight but not all of their parents. But these are Sis and Bud's friends now. When asked who they wanted to invite, these are the kids they know.

So, it's the end of the playgroup era in a very concrete way. Sure, it had been happening slowly as we were dropped from invitation lists of other playgroup friends, their moms awkwardly explaining. Of course, I understood; I expected it . . . . And now I've left them off our invite list and feel just as awkward.

Maybe awkward isn't the word. Maybe the word is sad or nostalgic. Especially because, in truth, I see the moms of most of those playgroup friends less and less with each passing month. And so, while I'm very excited about the kids' sixth birthday, I can't quite completely celebrate the party.

So here's a toast to that playgroup, with which we celebrated so many occasions (and cried together and kvetched together over many others). You might not be there today, but you'll always be with me. Thank you.