Party Day!
All my hard work seemed to pay off! The cake looked fabulous, as only a cake that looks like a pile of vermin infested dirt can. It was pretty dry without a filling, but no one seemed to care. The wow factor was enough to win over a bunch of 5 year olds.
Almost everything went very smoothly. These types of parties are always hard to plan because of the RSVP situation. Will one or both parents stick around? Will the families who didn’t RSVP show up? Will extra siblings be on hand? I planned for 20 kids and 20 adults, but we ended up with 15 kids and 8 adults. I was relieved because it gave us a lot more space to move around, but it did mean we had way too much food left over.
I had everything planned to precision and have become much, much better at dealing with getting everything ready. I do checklists. I package the food up in small containers and then put it in the larger serving platters when we get there. I put items in the order I will use them. I label things.
Since I used to be a total introvert with no desire to ever host a party, those things were not learned in my younger years. I am also learning to communicate my plans to my helpers. This doesn’t come easily either. Even after 8 years of marriage, I still think Mike should read my mind and know what I am planning. I know it doesn’t work like that. I know are brains are so different that we might as well be from different planets. But I’m learning.
If any of you are near Montgomery County, MD I can highly recommend Meadowside Nature Center as a party venue. The program was really well done and the kids were highly engaged. The program lasted over an hour, which was an hour that I didn’t have to stress about entertaining the children. I’m all for not stressing.
Almost every single kid petted the snake, which surprised me. The kids all ran away from the turtle, which also surprised me. The turtle was chasing after them, so I guess that’s why they ran.
We learned how to tell male and female turtles apart based on the shape of their bellies. Almost all the moms let out an audible gasp when the naturist told the kids that the male turtle climbs on top of the female turtle’s back to mate, then demonstrated with a live male turtle and a plastic female turtle. My eyes just about popped out of my head, but the naturist carried on and it was soon forgotten by the children.
The only glitch was caused by the birthday boy. He took the candles out of the supply box and brought them to me so he could whine that the pack had 8 instead of 6. I was right in middle of packaging the fruit, so brushed him off and put it out of my mind. So do you think the candles made it to the party? Of course not. Luckily I had bought a sparkler 6, and he was ok with that. We were also very lucky that the room did not have overhead sprinklers. That sucker gave off a ton of smoke and I was convinced we were going to be soaked by the time it burned out. Thankfully the sparkler was enough for him. I did not want to deal with a crying fit from the birthday boy. Maybe he is finally maturing.
In addition to seeing all the animals, it was a beautiful day so we got to go on a little hike and hunt down turtles. There were also a few snakes. I hope everyone did a good tick check when they got home. I am pretty sure that’s where Elsa picked up her Lyme disease tick this summer.
When we got back from the hike, we got the kids started on the craft (all supplies provided by the nature center) and finished up the party. I elected to opt out of serving pizza since it was the middle of the day. I don’t know why every party has to have pizza regardless of the time. It makes no sense to my regimented little mind. Instead, we set out plates of fruit for the kids and they gobbled it up while they painted their snakes.
I had a whole bag of the choc o rocks left over from the cake, so I spread them out on the tables like confetti. I also had some plastic spiders, frogs and snakes that I spread around, so it looked pretty cool. My mom sat at one end of the table and ate all the rocks. No one could tell they were chocolate, so she scared more than one person. One mom dive bombed Elsa to pull a rock out of her mouth. It’s unbelievable how real those choc o rocks look. I went around and showed the kids that you could eat them so they wouldn’t go to waste. A few jaws dropped as I demonstrated, but they quickly decided that was the most awesome thing ever. They taste a lot like sixlets–just very fake, overly sweet chocolate.
As soon as the cake was served and eaten, several of the moms and my mom took the kids to a different area of the nature center (a cave! Real turtles in an indoor pond! A canoe! A little pioneer house!) while a few of the dads helped me clean up. It worked out really, really well. It’s so nice to have friends who help with things like that. I really do love my life here. We’ve been here six years and it has become a great community for us.
Only one really odd thing happened. I put little flashlights in the goody bags (can you believe flashlights were cheaper than ring pops?) because I knew the caves were really dark. One boy came back to get his flashlight from his bag and his dad told him he didn’t need a flashlight. I wasn’t thinking about undermining someone’s parenting. I told him “Oh, all the kids have a flashlight in their goody bags`” and the guy got annoyed with me. I guess maybe he was trying to get the kid over a fear of the dark?
I’m like a different person today. No stress! No planning! No barking orders! No boxes of Oriental Trading junk in my living room!
Now I have to prepare for next week: chaperoning the kindergarten pumpkin patch field trip, going to another pumpkin patch with MOMS Club and Elsa and getting a wisdom tooth extracted (I won’t be knocked out, thank goodness). And that’s just Monday and Tuesday.
Mike’s going to be out of town Tuesday-Friday, so I’m really glad my mom is here to help out. I need to kidnap her forever, but I know she would never agree to leave my sister’s children long term. They need her a lot more than we need her, though at the moment my sister and her husband are sober, drug free and in counseling. That doesn’t usually last long.