Birthday Parties

Ok Moms if you never gave yourself permission before and you are waiting for it, I’m giving it to you right here and now:

You do not have to have a huge birthday party for your child.

It’s said and don’t  you ever tell me you “have” to again.

Mom’s have this tendency to go overboard when it comes to their children’s birthdays.  Maybe it’s the fact that we love parties.  Maybe it’s the fact that we love having something to look forward to and to take our minds off the day to day drudgery that motherhood can tend to bring.  Maybe it’s a competitive edge between mother’s to try and have the biggest and best birthday party for their child.

Overall I think Mother’s really just have so much love for their child that the day they were born means so much to them and brings up so many memories that they need to mark it with a huge party with lots of amazing food, and favors, and games, and decorations.... even if the child is 1 and has absolutely no idea it’s their birthday, who the people there are, or what month it is, or where their toes are.

What they know is they like cake.

Cake.  The single ingredient to an awesome birthday.  Cake, it’s all you have to remember.

But seriously I planned my E’s first birthday party with grand ideas of make your own pizzas, amazing homemade chocolate cupcakes, and some games for the kids.  

So I invited my mommy group of four other kids all born within 2 months of each other.  E is the oldest.  That means the rest of them were 10-11 months.  Games, hah!

So how it all went down was I made all the pizzas with just random combinations while trying to keep E out of all the decorations until I could get a picture of it all.  Then all the kids just ate pizza on the floor.  Then we took turns putting the pizza covered kids in the high chair to eat chocolate cupcakes.  By then all clothes were removed so we had tomato sauce and chocolate covered tots crawling/walking all over the house and totally tuckered out.  Our solution?  A group bath.  The ultimate activity and photo op at a birthday party.  And you know only one year olds could get away with a naked party ending in a group bath.

For some reason I learned nothing from this experience or my friend’s experiences of one year old parties either.  I repeated this mistake with his second birthday although this time at least I had help.  We had a dinosaur themed party as E asked for with tons of food and themed cake and sandwiches (St’egg’ asarus salad!).  I had games but they were more age appropriate, so at least I guess I learned something.  Games such as pin the tail on the dinosaur, color the dinosaur, and then plaster the dinosaur with stickers!

Still the entire time I felt stressed and like I had to moderate, coordinate, facilitate, and lots of other words ending in -ate.  Even with help I only physically relaxed and enjoyed the moment after my guests left.

Still I did not learn.  Repeat again for O’s first birthday.  He was cranky the whole time and instead of telling everybody to go home please, the birthday boy needs a nap, I pushed through and tried to make him eat cake for the camera even though by a year old he really ate nothing, he more of garberuated it than ate it.  No games this time but in order to accommodate everyone we had three birthday parties.  For a one year old.  *Face palm.

That was three cakes, well a cookie cake, cake, and cupcakes to be accurate.  

I see it time and time again from me and my friends.  Frazzled mom’s just trying to make it through the day.  They prep with every spare second when they are not mothering, so their free time, those precious minutes before bed and into when they should be recharging for the next day all spent away.  Then they have the party trying to make the most of each moment while simultaneously trying to keep every guest happy and in awe of your amazing party planning and mothering skills.

So a little advice to everyone.

1)  I said it before and here it is again.  Moms, no one is judging your party by how cool the decorations, cake shape, games, and costumes are.  They are just happy to be out of the house and that their kid will have a sugar crash nap later.  Give yourself a break.

2)  Plan easy and simple and especially according to age.  I heard once that the number of guests should be your child’s age plus one.  I also read a good guideline is the party should be an hour per age, obviously capping at some point unless it’s a sleepover.

3)  If you are at another birthday party and you see the mom slaving away, ask to help.  Cut the cake while she takes pictures of her kid devouring it.  Or take pictures as she and dad bring the lit up cake over to the birthday kid, that’s a memory they will want documented and will forget that someday they would like to have a couple pictures to prove they were there.  

4)  Please, please, please cut out the goody bags!  Seriously money is better spent elsewhere than on dollar store toys that get thrown out or more sweets that continue the hyperness for hours longer.  What my friends have come to learn is that if you have a theme just simply gifting a part of a costume to wear during the party (dollar store fire hat, fairy wings, or fairy wand) is amazing and can be added to the dress-up box when they get home.  Otherwise just forget about it and buy coffee or wine for yourself, depending on your preference.

5)  Think through your ideas before you become really attached to them.  In your head a ‘choose your topping grilled cheese bar’ sounds like an amazing, fun, cheaper than ordering pizza idea but in reality making 21 grilled cheese sandwiches takes a really. long. time.  Seriously, it does, I know.

6)  And remember:  Don’t forget the cake.

To be fair most of you will not heed my advice, nor have I managed to either.  Maybe I will learn eventually just to relax and that imagination is the best activity for a party.  That my child simply wants to feel love of friends and family on their special day. Not have mommy in the kitchen, stressed out, trying not to burn the grilled cheese, occasionally snapping pictures of the fun.  But honestly every once in awhile you strike gold and that look on E’s face when he got to sit in a real live fire truck on his 3rd birthday after asking for a firefighter birthday party, was priceless and I’ll never forget it.