It Was Like Herding Cats

The Boy had his birthday party last night. Oh. My. Gracious. W-I-L-D!

Somehow we've managed to get away with never having a "friend" birthday party for him before. Last year he had just started school, and before that he was in daycare, so either because he didn't know any of the kids or I didn't know any of the parents (a bit of a pre-requisite when your kids are too young to be trusted to go through the whole give-invite-get-invite-to-parents-rsvp cycle), the official tally was The Girl = 3 and The Boy = 0 when it came to ye olde kid craziness.

Makes me wax nostalgic for my good old days. Our parties were always right after school; as we lived 1/2 block from the school, all the kids just walked over to my house. We hung out, opened presents, ate hot dogs and had cake. My mom made *awesome* cakes, and they always had money in them.

Parties these days are much different. If a party is at a kid's house, it's often not enough to just have the kids come over and hang out; The Boy went to one where they had a cartoonist. Even more frequent are the "event" parties where everyone meets at some sort of kid-friendly place; The Girl's entire class was invited to the aquarium at the mall last year, and The Boy's headed over to an indoor bouncer place next weekend.

We tried the event party this year for the first time. It's a bit of a trade-off, these parties. On the one hand, you avoid the whole "clean the house like a madwoman" for a week before (unless I'm the only one who thinks it matters that 6-year-olds might find dust on the bookshelves) and the whole "what am I going to do with 11 kids for two hours" conundrum. On the other hand, you pay a substantial amount for this convenience, but if we divide it over the past three years' dearth of parties for him, it all works out.

The kids had a great time playing in the indoor play structure and eating pizza and cake. I'd show you, but I have not one picture. Nope, the camera was there but unused as there was simply too much craziness. So, take my word for it, 'k?

We also had a good time connecting with the other parents. We might live in a snobby suburb, but so far we've found all the people we meet on an individual level to be quite nice. Maybe we're just snobs who have found our true home. One father commented when I thanked him and his wife for all their help and for staying to chat that, "hey, we're all going to be together for 12 more years, better get to know each other."

Which sounds fabulous, although tough for me to picture given our propensity towards moving schools.

Nevertheless, it will likely not be the last time I see these kids. But I'm thankful that it'll be another year before we do this again. I suspect the leftover pizza and cake will last until at least December.