Oh yeah, your little one is looking forward whole year for it and you are scared of it same time. Children’s birthday party, heaven on earth for the kid and hell on earth for daddy. But don’t get me wrong, I love it, it is great, just a little stressful and exhausting.
It starts weeks before, the birthday is on the horizon and the “when” question comes up. When will we do the birthday party with her friends? Directly on the birthday? Or the weekend after the birthday? Oh, one of the invitees is away on that weekend, how about the Friday before the weekend? It takes days to fix the date. There are so many dependencies. Whom to invite? How many to invite? Does the date collide with other birthday parties? Are all invitees available then? Does this fit into grandparents schedule? …
Let’s assume the “when” is fixed now. To send the invitations the next elementary questions needs to be answered. What’s the motto of the party? Knights? Oh no, this has been the motto of one of the invitee kids already. And immediately a whole bunch of dependencies and requirements jump through your head. It’s a big decision since nearly everything depends on it, the design of the invitation cards, decoration, plates, cups, costumes, party games and even the food. Scary. And not only that. The motto needs to be supported by your kid as well, yes! So discuss it with your little one BEFORE you buy any accessory. Really cool then is the sentence once you have got all accessories: “Daddy, I don’t like knights anymore, I wanna have a horse birthday party”. Then it is time to bring the motto contract signed by your kid: “Sweet, yesterday we agreed on a knights party, signed is signed, PERIOD!” Our agreed motto this time was “Cowboys and American Indians”, timeless motto and daddy can make a fire in the courtyard, yeah!
Okay, now you have this bunch of kids, but how to entertain them? Plain kids party games? Boring. All do the same games, we need something special, creative, remarkable and something what fits into the defined motto. Omg, panic, lets read the entire internet to gather ideas. How about a treasure hunt? But what could be a good treasure? Where to hide it? We need a special box, with a lock and a plan, … arghhhh. So you spend many evenings creating a treasure hunt plan with a red cross on it. Of course it needs to look ancient, so you are starting crinkling the paper, burning the edges and rubbing the paper with coffee powder to make it look old. You are walking the route to define proper hints which of course have something to do with cowboys and are easy and challenging enough for your kids age. You are searching an entire evening for a proper treasure box with a lock. Done, but you are starting to feel stressed and exhausted and the party hasn’t even started.
Food, of course you need something special, not just a boring cake. What can you do? How about building a cool vikings warship out of a bread, with little shields made out of sliced cucumber? Hmm, good idea, but wrong motto. We need something more wild west. So we made American native muffins. Means decorating muffins to look like American Indian, with a cute face, hairs of chocolate, war food paint and 2 paper feathers on the top. You spend nearly half a day in kitchen but the results look cool … and are eaten up in seconds without any complimenting word. Kids can be cruel at times.
And then the day before the party you are starting to decorate the room. Oh bad, we don’t have enough chairs and the table is too small. We need balloons, lots of them. And so you are spending whole evening blowing up balloons and decorating the room with paper streamers. Once everything is prepared you are feeling like finished a marathon run.
And finally the party day. Your little one is happy, jumping excited around you. The first guests are arriving and you are wishing this day might end soon. Most parents deliver their kids with a knowing and compassionate smile, very nice. Once all guests are here you start with your program. And do you know this? There is always one trouble maker kid which does not want to do what all others do. “Treasure hunt is boring” or “I know already where the treasure is” messages are very helpful for your mood in addition. But your kid seems to have fun and this only counts.
Seeing your birthday princess smile and her shiny eyes make you forget all the preparation stress, make you ignore the mess around the table, even the muffins distributed in the room. The floor is gluing from apple juice and the kids room looks like a scene after an earthquake. But once the last guest has left and you are sitting in the middle of the mess, looking into your kids eyes, you are realizing it was worth it, isn’t it?