It snowed on Sunday, just like it did four years ago when Harbour was born.

I remember going to pick up the birthing tub at the midwives four years ago. It was the day before her birthday –  I was 40 weeks + 2 days. The midwives told me that a wicked winter storm was coming and that if I wanted a home birth, I’d have to deliver my baby before the snow arrived. Harbour, ever so compliant, was born early the next afternoon, right before 25 cm of snow was dumped on us by the “2011 Groundhog Day Blizzard.”

Four years ago, it felt like her birth day would never come. I was tired of being pregnant. I was just tired of waiting. This year, however, her birthday came all too quickly and I felt completely unprepared.

We didn’t do anything fancy – at four years old, just having family over for supper is exciting enough. So we invited her oma, poppa, grandma and pops, plus my cousins and my aunt and uncle. There was pizza and cake and gifts and I’m pretty sure she thought it was all fantastic.

Even so, part of me feels bad that we didn’t do something more, though I’m not sure exactly what that would even be.

My mom was always so good at birthdays when I was growing up. I’d wake up to an apartment full of balloons and streamers strung from corner to corner to corner. My mom would even twist two colours together to make the streamers extra fancy. Try as I might, I can barely get a single colour streamer to stay up on the wall. We tried in November for River’s birthday – I’m pretty sure my husband ended up using duct tape to keep them up. Clearly the skill of streamer manipulation was not passed down to my generation.

Harbour didn’t seem to mind the lack of decorations. Having a clean house was probably special enough. And I use the term “house” loosely – a “half of the main floor” would be more accurate.

We didn’t go all out on gifts either. This year we each made her something. My husband made a cake – a beautiful double-layer chocolate cake with pink buttercream icing. It was, of course, amazing. You’d never know it was gluten-free.

River made a book. She drew the pictures and then dictated the story to my mother, who typed out the text. Then I scanned the pictures and added the text and shipped the file off to Staples to be printed on glossy paper and spiral-bound.

I knit a stuffed toy – it’s Totoro from the movie My Neighbour Totoro. I’m more or less satisfied with how it turned out. The pattern I chose ended up being very unclear – I wish I had picked a different one because I had to just wing it while knitting as fast as I could. In general, the crochet patterns I found were much nicer but I’m not as comfortable crocheting – trying to crochet an entire project in less than 48 hours seemed doomed to fail.

Originally, I was going to make a felt birthday crown too, like the ones I’ve made for my older daughter’s last two birthdays. However, on Saturday I couldn’t find my felt and didn’t want to spend valuable knitting time driving to the store and back so I decided not to make one after all. I was already second-guessing the crown at that point – Harbour doesn’t like things tight around her head. I could barely get her to try on another crown so that I could judge the sizing. I’ll start making her crowns next year instead.

So that was it from us. A cake, a book and a stuffed toy. Does that seem like too little? I’m not sure.

Part of me is thrilled that we had such a simple celebration. It’s the kind of birthday that I always wished that we could do. Simple. Small. So why do I feel like I let her down?

Maybe it’s because the day didn’t feel intentionally simple – it just sort of turned out that way. I was too tired to do anything else. I’m too tired to plan. We were all sick this week, but beyond that, I’ve been exhausted for weeks. My thoughts are disjointed. My ambition comes and goes. I don’t feel rested when I wake up in the mornings.

I don’t know. I wish I had made the day more special for her because she really is a special girl.

The funny thing is, I think she had a great time at her party. I’m the only one that I disappointed.

I know there’s a take away lesson here – simple celebrations are fine? Presents don’t make the party? I think the lesson might be that I should some pretty birthday bunting that doesn’t require scotch tape or twisting, but I’m not sure yet. Thankfully, our baby’s birthday is still 8 months away, so I’ve got time to figure it out.