Monday, August 20, 2007

Birthday Party (part 1)

When I was in kindergarten, my parents had the class over to the house for my birthday. Even though the party was in our yard, the kids made their way into the house and climbed all over things. I was hesitant about giving my son a party at home because of this experience, but a few weeks ago DH had a great idea for a low-key party – pancake breakfast (with the kids in their pajamas) and Sunday morning cartoons. With the addition of one game (tape-the-tail-on-the-donkey, requested by my son), we pulled this off quite successfully yesterday.

Actually, it was supposed to be next week. Last Friday, a few hours before Shabbos, we got a call from another mother in the class. Apparently she had already invited all the boys on the date we had picked. So we were calling people right before Shabbos to let them know that the date was changed. My whole family was in town for our birthdays (my son and I have the same birthday) so the house was quite full, but I liked that my parents got to see the kids that their grandson spends time with. We had a teenager take care of the baby, and my best friend was a huge help with serving the food and keeping the kids in line.

The cartoon thing was a huge hit – and the kids were even excited to watch something educational. The only chaos was during the game, when the kids crowded into the dining room to play the donkey game. They even threw out their own trash!

I really enjoyed the chance to give The Party before school opens, not only so the kids could meet but also so that I could meet the parents. There were two new kids who were very shy and their parents (who were really nice) stayed at the party.

There was only one “incident,” and it will be the topic of tomorrow’s post (although some of you have heard me talk about it already.) It is not something that was a huge problem, but raises a lot of birthday party etiquette issues.

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