Kid Scoop
Kids’ Birthday Parties Are Like Frat Parties
I am taking Anders to a birthday party today. I waited until this morning to tell him because counting the hours with a four-year-old is much easier than counting days. Have you ever tried explaining to a kid that something they are excited about is two weeks away?
“Is that, like, not tomorrow, but the next day?”
“No, it’s 14 days away.”
“Is that, like, the weekend?”
“No. How about this? It’s two show and tells and one night’s sleep away. Get it?”
Oh, they nod and smile, but they’ll be back to ask you again in an hour. Children give amnesiacs a bad name.
Have you ever had the pleasure of telling a kid they are going to “insert exciting place here”? It’s like you are Ed McMahon and they’ve just won a million dollars through the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. There’s lots of excited screaming and disbelief. He’s been running around the house since I told him, gathering things he wants to bring with us, and sporadically shrieking “I’m going to a party!”
There’s a lot of energy in our home this morning. Multiply that by 15-20 and you have our afternoon. Children’s birthday parties are a flurry of poorly controlled consumption, weird games that never go as expected, and the occasional fight, all at high volume. There’s always someone crying in the corner and it’s inevitable that someone is going to vomit. They’re kind of like frat parties, except less alcohol and worse music. At the end of both the house is destroyed, everything is sticky, and most of the attendees go home and pass out.
It’s that last point that makes it worth it. I’m going to earn that early bedtime (for both of us) today.
Anyone else need a glass of wine after one of these shindigs?
Photo credit: Flickr
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1 Comment
Mbaker commented on Nov 19 11 at 11:39 pmYour post is why I plan to keep my kids’ parties small as long as I can. One of those etiquette experts recommends aiming for a number of party attendees that’s your child’s age plus 1 which I think is a wise rule for at home parties especially when your kid is at the drop off age so you don’t have parental reinforcements.
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