Kellie Thacker's Blog - Posts Tagged "insanity"
Birthday Party Insanity
With my son's 4th birthday party coming up this weekend, I can feel the crazy person that lurks inside of me crawling her way to the surface. Every year I end up asking myself, why oh why do I go to all this trouble every year, knowing I'll look like a derranged circus clown when it's all over?
If you're like me, you get this fantasy in your head of how it's all gonna go. You start by letting your child choose the theme of the party, which is cute at the time until they choose a theme that you think is ridiculous and end up choosing your idea and talking them into going along with it.
Once you've chosen your theme six months early, you start looking on Pintrest for decoration ideas, cute little finger foods, games, and maybe even a craft or two--all saved in a folder labeled Birthday Parties. A folder you never open again.
During the next six months, you pass through the party decor isle at Walmart every trip, imagining yourself picking out what you'll buy. Maybe you even stop by a few party stores, like Party City--just to see what they offer. Oh, and don't forget that wish list on Amazon. You also may find yourself having 'girl nights' with your best friend to have party talk because your kids' birthdays are close together--even though you have a boy and she has a girl and the parties will be total opposites.
Now the party is a month away and because it follows Christmas, you are now in panic mode. Even though Christmas shopping has taken up most of your time--not to mention money--you are still smart enough to buy your child's birthday presents at the same time. But that's all. As the weeks start passing by quicker than you can comprehend, you begin to realize that all those decorations you were planning to buy are still hanging on the shelves of Walmart in that isle you forgot about as soon as December started.
Two weeks before the party that you set the date for two months ago, you are scrambling to find decorations that correspond with the theme that YOU chose, coming up half empty. To compensate, you sprint to the Dollar Tree hoping they have something remotely close to what you wanted. You spend $10.
Now, it's time for the menu, games, and crafts. You no longer have the time--or the money--to buy the supplies for all those cute little ideas you saved on Pintrest that you don't remember anymore anyway, so you make a quick list of easy-to-fix-and-inexpensive foods--hotdogs--and run to Kroger (or Save-a-lot depending on driving distance). You buy a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game because, again, you forgot what exactly that game was you saw on Pintrest that looked so fun for the kids. The awesome craft you were going to do with the kids suddenly becomes coloring sheets torn from a $1 coloring book you happened to catch a glimpse of on your way to the gift wrap.
The cake is actually the easiest and most inexpensive part of the entire party planning. Why? Because your mother-in-law is a cake designing expert. That's right. You knew what you where doing when you married her son. So that is taken care of--thank God.
One day to go and you're at the venue covering tables with your Dollar Tree plastic table covers (yes covers, not clothes) and the 3pk of tiny centerpieces you can barely see that you had to buy two of. You'd think they would make them just a BIT bigger. Every year you buy balloons and every year you forget to have them blown up. So this year, you opted out. Who needs balloons? It's just a birthday party for goodness sake!
So now it's the day of. Why didn't you make that pasta salad yesterday so you would have ONE less thing to deal with today? And where the heck is the tape!! Those presents should have been wrapped a month ago! And no need to make all the food at home. The venue has a kitchen--utilize it. Great idea. Now all the guests are arriving and you're still cooking. And where are the plates, napkins and forks? Did you forget cups too? What's wrong with you woman?! Pull yourself together!!
Ten mintues into the party and you child is already trying to open their presents but you want them to eat and cut cake and sing Happy Birthday first. Until you realize you don't have a candle on the cake. Where did you put that candle?! Thanks, now everyone is staring at you like you're an idiot while you dig through bag after bag and box after box trying to find ONE CANDLE!
Ok, thank God that's over. You finally look at your child with a big smile on your face and tell them it's time to open presents! Yay! They run over and grab the first one they see and begin tearing it open in the floor--and so do five other kids. Ok, so maybe their parents forgot to tell them it isn't their birthday party. And now they have ten presents unwrapped that your child hasn't even seen yet. BUT, you bite your tongue and get over it--they're only kids...ONLY kids.
Finally, guests have started to depart and you have sat down to take a break and eat what's left over, which isn't much. You take a deep breath, sigh, and stare longingly at the mess you have to clean up. All that hard work for 30 minutes of "fun". After cleaning for an hour, shoving all the new toys and clothes in your car, not to mention food containers with leftover cake inside, and drive home, you look at your child's sleeping face and you think maybe, just maybe, it was all worth it.
If you're like me, you get this fantasy in your head of how it's all gonna go. You start by letting your child choose the theme of the party, which is cute at the time until they choose a theme that you think is ridiculous and end up choosing your idea and talking them into going along with it.
Once you've chosen your theme six months early, you start looking on Pintrest for decoration ideas, cute little finger foods, games, and maybe even a craft or two--all saved in a folder labeled Birthday Parties. A folder you never open again.
During the next six months, you pass through the party decor isle at Walmart every trip, imagining yourself picking out what you'll buy. Maybe you even stop by a few party stores, like Party City--just to see what they offer. Oh, and don't forget that wish list on Amazon. You also may find yourself having 'girl nights' with your best friend to have party talk because your kids' birthdays are close together--even though you have a boy and she has a girl and the parties will be total opposites.
Now the party is a month away and because it follows Christmas, you are now in panic mode. Even though Christmas shopping has taken up most of your time--not to mention money--you are still smart enough to buy your child's birthday presents at the same time. But that's all. As the weeks start passing by quicker than you can comprehend, you begin to realize that all those decorations you were planning to buy are still hanging on the shelves of Walmart in that isle you forgot about as soon as December started.
Two weeks before the party that you set the date for two months ago, you are scrambling to find decorations that correspond with the theme that YOU chose, coming up half empty. To compensate, you sprint to the Dollar Tree hoping they have something remotely close to what you wanted. You spend $10.
Now, it's time for the menu, games, and crafts. You no longer have the time--or the money--to buy the supplies for all those cute little ideas you saved on Pintrest that you don't remember anymore anyway, so you make a quick list of easy-to-fix-and-inexpensive foods--hotdogs--and run to Kroger (or Save-a-lot depending on driving distance). You buy a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game because, again, you forgot what exactly that game was you saw on Pintrest that looked so fun for the kids. The awesome craft you were going to do with the kids suddenly becomes coloring sheets torn from a $1 coloring book you happened to catch a glimpse of on your way to the gift wrap.
The cake is actually the easiest and most inexpensive part of the entire party planning. Why? Because your mother-in-law is a cake designing expert. That's right. You knew what you where doing when you married her son. So that is taken care of--thank God.
One day to go and you're at the venue covering tables with your Dollar Tree plastic table covers (yes covers, not clothes) and the 3pk of tiny centerpieces you can barely see that you had to buy two of. You'd think they would make them just a BIT bigger. Every year you buy balloons and every year you forget to have them blown up. So this year, you opted out. Who needs balloons? It's just a birthday party for goodness sake!
So now it's the day of. Why didn't you make that pasta salad yesterday so you would have ONE less thing to deal with today? And where the heck is the tape!! Those presents should have been wrapped a month ago! And no need to make all the food at home. The venue has a kitchen--utilize it. Great idea. Now all the guests are arriving and you're still cooking. And where are the plates, napkins and forks? Did you forget cups too? What's wrong with you woman?! Pull yourself together!!
Ten mintues into the party and you child is already trying to open their presents but you want them to eat and cut cake and sing Happy Birthday first. Until you realize you don't have a candle on the cake. Where did you put that candle?! Thanks, now everyone is staring at you like you're an idiot while you dig through bag after bag and box after box trying to find ONE CANDLE!
Ok, thank God that's over. You finally look at your child with a big smile on your face and tell them it's time to open presents! Yay! They run over and grab the first one they see and begin tearing it open in the floor--and so do five other kids. Ok, so maybe their parents forgot to tell them it isn't their birthday party. And now they have ten presents unwrapped that your child hasn't even seen yet. BUT, you bite your tongue and get over it--they're only kids...ONLY kids.
Finally, guests have started to depart and you have sat down to take a break and eat what's left over, which isn't much. You take a deep breath, sigh, and stare longingly at the mess you have to clean up. All that hard work for 30 minutes of "fun". After cleaning for an hour, shoving all the new toys and clothes in your car, not to mention food containers with leftover cake inside, and drive home, you look at your child's sleeping face and you think maybe, just maybe, it was all worth it.
