I posted this under "stories" and now I have that knot in my stomach of regret. After finding the blogs, I think this is the better place for my ranting. The "stories" section is so--PUBLIC! People may actually know me. Okay, I'm burying this stuff in my blog. You people actually had to come looking to be reading this. I hereby relinquish ALL responsibility. There!
We just had the second birthday party in our house in two weeks.
2008 theme--sleepovers!
I'm not sure why this year's theme made the difference between boys and girls so clear. Maybe it was because we had to endure 15 hours of it in our own home? Perhaps it was due to similarities,such as eating, sleeping and movies? Either way, I feel like we have successfully documented a study on the subject. Use the following information as inspiration, or heed it as a warning, while planning your next birthday party experience.
Two weeks ago, our daughter kicked off the party-madness by celebrating her seventh birthday with ten little giggly girlfriends. They sat at the decked out dining room table with napkins on their laps, pinkies out, practicing taking turns and making sure everybody had an equal slice of cake.
At gift time there was an ocean of volunteers to help take notes , each petitioning their resumes of good handwriting and organizing skills. They were so disappointed when I claimed the right to list making myself.
After presents, they held hands and entered my little girl's bedroom (which she had spent hours cleaning) to see the two hired teenagers that did hair, nails and makeup. There was oh-ing and ah-ing and advice on colors and outfits. Two hours later the teenagers left and we entered the basement movie room, where the girls neatly arranged pillows and blankets. Not until every newly curled hairdo was aligned just so, could we start Barbie Diamond Castle. It was eerie quiet, as the girls sat glued to the suspense of what poor Barbie, in the gorgeous gown and perfect hair, would do next.
A lengthy discussion followed the movie where each girl pleaded their own case as to who looked the most like Barbie. It was finally settled and the girl with white hair and no eyebrows was crowned "Barbie" and the other girls settled for other resemblances of Barbie's friends. I was relieved that my daughter--the birthday girl--was delighted to be called "Sparkles, the dog."
The girls bounced happily to my seven-year-old'sroom on first hint of bedtime, where they spent forty minutes making sure their hair was laying just right on their pillow cases and comparing pajamas. I sat outside the bedroom until Barbie, Barbie's friends and Sparkles the dog, were snoring like hairy men. They were asleep by 10pm.
I was awakened by giggles and singing at 6 AM the next morning. A slew of tweaked Barbie-look-alikes with dragon morning breath were sitting outside the bathroom waiting their turn. This was going to take a looong time.
We ate waffles with breakfast ice cream, then danced and reenacted last night's movie in the basement. By the time the parents came to pick them up they had spot-checked each other's outfits and picked up my daughter's room. Soon I was left with a hung-over looking version of Sparkles the dog, and three white Bobbie socks (no claims yet).
This brings me to the latest birthday party. Although still September, our nine-year-old son, insisted to have a Halloween party. He invited ten smelly boys--and all of them could come. It was a Festivus miracle.
The Halloween party had two options--stay over (10 am pick up the next day) or stay later (chicken exit--leave at 10pm and forfeit the dare of sleeping inside the haunted house). Each child was instructed to come in his costume.
The day before the party one concerned mother called. Apparently they do not celebrate Halloween. I confirmed that I am probably not a good mother and that the Halloween party was (gasp!) indeed a Halloween party. She told me her son did not have a costume. I offered him to loan an old Elvis outfit, Darth Vader--or I could loan him my naughty nurse uniform. Some people have no humor.
The second miracle--the child was still going to come to the party.
He was not gong to sleep in no devil mansion though. I guess that's where good moms draw the line.
As my house was being transformed into a dark hole, I thought that the good mom may be interested in finding out the evening's movie feature--it was not Barbie Diamond Castle. The little boy answered and told me that he could not wait to come to a house of sinners. Okay, so not really, but I am sure he had heard something close to this. He told me not to worry about the costume, because his mom had suddenly found inspiration to get him something to wear. She was herself not wearing anything at the moment, I was told, as she was in the shower. I pondered for a moment then told the boy to tell his mom that he was about to watch the movie Gremlins at 9PM.
I went on setting up for the party and making blood-orange, gummy bug Jell-O like any normal heathen.
The doorbell rang at 6 o'clock sharp--skeletons, ghouls, and a pimp on stilettos-- were pouring onto my driveway. There were two moms sitting in their cars outside my house, but they had not come to say hello. The average person would probably have seen this as an omen and let them sit there as they sent their children into the lair of the Pipers, but I thought I ought to introduce myself.
The two cars were pulled up side-by-side with the windows rolled down so the women could talk.
I was not evenin hit-and-run distance before one woman launched
"I remember Gremlins and that's a scary movie!"
I shrugged my shoulders and smiled.I thought, "Yet yourchild as atthe party."
She continued, "My son can't watch that, and since I pick him up at 10PM, why don't you start the movie then?"
It was time to let her know this was not her party. I calmly replied,
"The movie starts at 9PM. You are welcome to pick your child up before then."
She said something about rescheduling herself and sped off into the sunset.
Do you know how much pizza a nine-year-old boy eats? It's a trick question--believe me. There were no napkins on laps, no pinkies out and no sharing. In lieu of this, there was a belching and burping contest and all-you-could-guzzle soda echoed with a booming "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!"
Next gifts were torn into before one could identity them and cards were thrown on the floor. My husband suddenly summoned me to the hallway because the dog was winning the farting contest and had spurted diarrhea all over. My poor husband suffers from a crippling illness of housework impairedness and could clearly not clean this up himself. I paused in taking thank-you-card-notes, painfully missing the line of girls that would have volunteered, and cleaned up after the dog. By the time I came back all gifts were unwrapped and each boy had to return to the line-up of gifts to identify, which one they had brought.
Bribery is not beneath me. I did the math and realized that paying each party-animal would have been too expensive. My thirteen year-old son though--naive and hard-up-for cash--was the perfect victim/recruit. I told him I'd pay him $25 for entertaining the boys for two hours. He and my husband had set up a haunted house in the basement. That lasted about ten minutes. The boys were back in the kitchen asking "Now what?"My the thirteen year-old, strapped glow-in-the-dark bracelets around each snaggle-tooth goblin and brought them to the woods behind our house for hide-and-go-seek in the dark.
By the time they returned I had cookies and ice cream with eyeball candles ready. It was wolfed down, burped and farted--much like the pizza.
Bobbing for apples was the perfect cure for the sticky, sugarcoated faces that had resulted. I had thought this would be the lame game of the night, but most of these kids had never had the pleasure to dunk themselves head first into a bucket of water in search of a piece of fruit. The game took an even more exciting turn as each of the dressed up boys challenged my thirteen year-old. It happens that he has a face full of braces. This turns out to be key when you are gaping for apples. If your mouth cannot wrap around it, stabbing it with your braces becomes fiercely efficient.
Note to self--schedule an appointment for orthodontic repair.
When the kids realized that I was planning to put an end to the water games in the kitchen, they were begging to turn on Gremlins.
I succumbed to peer pressure and told them I could not do this until 9PM, as someone could not watch the movie. It does not take a genius to figure out that this stirred a "Who can't watch a PG movie?" debate. I vowed that this information would go to the grave with me. The boys remembered that my grave was downstairs, on the left in the haunted house. The little boy, who clearly didn't realize that he was the cause for the movie being delayed for another twenty minutes, started pointing fingers at the others and counting off reasons why they probably were the ones holding up the show. We were just about to have a series of "Yo mama's so lame..." when the doorbell rang. It was the good mother arriving early to pick up the child and preserve his innocence.
He looked at her with disbelief and asked with an irritated tone:
"Mom, What are you doing here?"
Not knowing what had gone down, the good mother told him the gospel truth--she did not want him to watch that wretched movie. There was silence as a lot of pride was being swallowed and he gave her a sullen look. He thanked me for the invitation, the party favors, stuck a finger shaped lollipop into his mouth and opened the door.
His mom stopped him promptly and asked, "What is that in your mouth?"
I really, really wanted to tell her exactly which numerical digit I believed he was waving in front of her face. She grabbed her son by one hand and the treat bag by the other and left.
The evening carried on and a handful of boys left at 10 PM, leaving us with six boys to spend the night. I fell asleep at midnight. Not sure when they all drifted off to the fumes of their own gases and belches.
I have been up since 6:30 AM. I wanted to have a head start into the kitchen. The second the first strip of bacon hit the pan, the first woolly-headed rascal showed up. By the time it was sizzling, I felt like Snow White and the...six dwarfs. They were like baby birds with their mouths hanging open. 18 eggs and two packs of bacon later, they scampered off to play with the new NERF football in the yard. God bless boys for the ability to play outside! They reset the haunted house so they could go through it again. It's just not the same in daylight.
The dad's came, one by one, and picked their boys up. There was no outfit checking, no voluntary room cleaning. But I got the biggest award of them all--I was told this was the best sleep over ever!
The last parent to pick up came 45 minutes late, so I missed church. I'm just gonna stick this candy finger in my mouth and go watch Gremlins.
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