PAR-TAY

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Oh Happy Day!

Today was Becca's 5th birthday party. She requested gymnastics and ice cream cake, so that's what she got! I'll put up some highlight films in this post.

I did learn a new thing about California lingo through the party planning process. I have learned that in California, RSVP means "I will call you and chase your ass down to figure out whether your kid is coming." Even when I placed follow-up calls to some of these parents, they didn't call back! Listen, I don't care if you have plans! I just want to know how much pizza I gotta buy! And when it's your turn to have 15 preschoolers on your hands, face it, you want to know too!

I am also so proud of myself for learning from my prior kid-birthday-party-giving past.

• I did not have a pinata. Although nowadays, there are these newfangled pinatas with strings on them and each kid pulls a string instead of whacks it with a bat. Well, except Becca, who grabs a whole fistfull of strings. Still, it's a kinder gentler pinata. At Sarah's 4th birthday, I realized too late that you don't want to hand 3-year-olds a baseball bat. One little slugger made the parents back up and the kids all duck.
• I had extra hands. My friend Allison made up for my shameless lack of crepe paper skills. And Don put himself in charge of the food.
• I did not have live animals in my house. At Sarah's 6th birthday, we had a live animal show at our house and all was well until Milo the Chicken fell off his tightrope and into the kindergartners, including Sarah Guzik, who is deathly afraid of animals and whom we had to beg and cajole to sit up front with our Sarah and she would only do it while clutching her Blankie. And then wound up with a chicken in her lap. It was a flurry of feathers and screaming, crying people for a solid 30 seconds.


• I did not have it in my house. At Sarah's 3rd birthday, we did tie-dying and a frozen daiquiri machine. At the same party. I will not describe.


• I did not have a marathon. Preschoolers are perfectly happy with a 1.5 hour party. And this way nobody really has time to get hurt, barf, or start a fight. Including onlooking parents.


• I coached Becca in advance about being a good hostess... that means you greet your guests, say please and thank you, no fighting or biting, and you give out treat bags and balloons to other people at the end. Even if the guest is a mortal enemy of yours in real life.

I had energy left over to get Sarah to do her make-up homework!