I HAVE FORGOTTEN-CHILDHOOD

The coolest kid on earth was having a birthday. He turned one whole year old. But my favorite friend's darling lives on the other side of the country, they celebrated it small, on a Saturday morning, so I could really skip it. “He won't notice anyway,‘ she said. Well, that might be true, I thought too. Now I can of course say that I got bizarrely confused about which day he was actually celebrating his birthday and that I had to check that with her too, but let's not dwell on that further.

My girlfriends are giving birth en masse to their babies in January, February, or March. So it was a few days of checking the clock for the coolest girl to turn one whole year old. Long live Instagram, because there I saw the celebration with a foil balloon bouncing by. Being as thoughtful as I am, I sent her my congratulations via the app for the little man. She thanked me with a lot of love and said that the thanks was really huge, but it was actually her daughter who was celebrating her birthday today. Oops, but e-nor-me OOPS. And I knew it, because her son is already two. She was definitely rolling through the living room, laughing out loud with the foil balloon in one hand and her daughter in the other arm. I was hitting my forehead hard.

“Then you are a very, very bad self-proclaimed aunt”

I suffer from forget-childhood. And I can't really do anything about it. My family is large and then you give each other the free pass. That free pass is applicable on birthdays of nephews, nieces, and the like. You just come a week later, under the pretense of ‘we can really catch up’ (which I actually think too) loaded with gifts to pamper the little one. And that's where it went a bit wrong this time. Because I even went to stay with the coolest kid in the Netherlands in question, but without a gift. Then you are a very, very bad self-proclaimed aunt. Especially if you always pretend that you take on that role of sugar aunt.

Now I feel like a degenerate aunt, because I still remember how I lay awake myself when I was almost a year old. It was really the day, correction, my day of the year. And even if the gift giver in question showed up a month later, I was counting on a present. Therefore, I have a new appointment with this aunt... Yes, I can use my free pass for the kids. But then I have to visit the toddlers with a car full of gifts afterwards. And you? Because I feel a bit alone in my forget-childhood.