The Hard Way to Throw a 6-Year-Old Birthday Party

Two years ago, we threw the boys a big 4-year-old birthday party. We went a little crazy to make up for having done nothing the year before. The guest list was around 40 total, adults and kids, because, well, we want to be inclusive, and we like a lot of people. It was stressful. And fun. 30 minutes before the party was about to start, L locked himself in the bathroom because he wasn’t strong enough to unlock the lock he’d just figured out how to lock. The lock is a mini-deadbolt without a keyhole, and can’t be picked. We tried to break in. My father was looking for a utility knife to cut through the paint around the door frame, so as to remove the framing and eventually the door. Maddy was talking about calling 911 or breaking the door down. I climbed on a ladder, and tried to break into the screened and locked window from the outside. Thankfully, with only minutes to spare before the party’s official start time, the window lock gave way, and I was able to crawl through to rescue little L, who actually stayed calmer than most of the adults. 

I got cajoled into throwing another party the next year, and this time the toilet broke during the party. The plastic piece that connects the chain to the flusher broke into pieces. Thankfully, someone came and got me before a bunch of kids used it without flushing, and we taped a helium balloon to the chain with a “pull me” sign. Crisis averted. (We don’t have a second bathroom.)

This year, I was for sure off the hook for throwing another party, but the boys started inviting people to their June birthday party in January. They also started commissioning presents. A few 5-year-old friends promised to buy them Po Dameron’s Lego X-Wing Fighter, worth more than $70. We decided to call this year’s party, “DnL’s Galactic Birthday.” The guest list doubled because, why not? I guess “off the hook” means the party will actually be off the hook.

Our goal is to have a party that is as fun for the adults as it is for the kids. It is, after all, also our birthday of becoming moms. We plan. Bouncy house. Bubbles. Balloons. The boys want a Star Wars theme. Maddy has the brilliant idea to show the newest Star Wars toward the end of the party, so the kids and the parents who let their kids watch that sort of thing can chill out. L wants lemon cupcakes with strawberry frosting. D wants M&M cookies with ice cream on top. Throwing a party is a great excuse to fix up the house, too. I order online: cheap Star Wars party favors, decorations, an oilcloth tablecloth… Ordering online, like any task, is usually interrupted by a crash, a scream, a kid crawling into my lap, a Lego spaceship scattered in pieces… or too much quiet. Like most parents, I always have one ear tuned away from whatever it is I’m trying to accomplish. I can’t think straight. I can’t remember what I’ve done, or what I was about to do. I already can’t get out from under the chores of groceries, cooking, cleaning, laundry, filling the love buckets and all that daily shit, so prepping for a party and fixing up the house is humorous in its impossibility. Boxes arrive & it’s like my birthday because I don’t remember ordering things. A new bathtub mat! What a good idea! What a smart self who thought of that.

The boys continue to invite everyone to their party, a cashier at the store, random people on the street. Out of the blue, in the car one day, Luka announces, “I’m NOT inviting Donald Trump to my birthday!” …smart kid.

Three days before the party, we shop, prep food and make frosting.The boys help with the frosting, made with strawberry jam and confectioners sugar. The entire kitchen is sticky. We clean their room, and put toys they don’t want other kids playing with into the basement. All that night, they carefully keep the basement door shut and latched to keep their toys safe.

Two days before, we make cupcakes, 42 big ones and 48 minis. The boys are excited to help. One cracks an egg and misses, and egg drips off the counter onto the floor. Somehow the cup of sugar gets knocked over. The hand-held egg beater must be kept precisely perpendicular or batter sprays all over. They take turns practicing this, after many failed attempts the day before with the frosting. I have to threaten them with banishment to keep their fingers out of the bowl. They last about halfway through the process, then destroy the living room I just cleaned while I finish baking. Just as I finish cleaning the kitchen, 90 muffins cooling on racks, Maddy gets home. Catching the excitement, she launches a cookie-making party. The boys excitedly help, spraying the kitchen with cookie batter and being threatened with banishment for sticking their fingers in the bowl. She warns them against getting their fingers caught in the egg beater. “Would it cut off my finger??” D asks. L says with authority, “I’d get a fake finger!” (a la Luke Skywalker’s hand.) Maddy tries to reason with him, but his brother chimes in, “What if I lost ALL my fingers…” The conversation gets gory, but they are interrupted by D suddenly noticing the cookie dough, “Oooohh!! That looks like peanut butter. It looks like POO!!” That night, the boys are too excited to sleep, or maybe it’s all the stolen cupcake batter & cookie dough. (A week or so later, after the party, we make muffins, and L steals some batter while D is egg-beating. “MOM!” D yells, “Luka almost cut off his finger!!!”)

The day before their party, I drop the boys at a friend’s house and go to yoga. Then starts an epic day of yard work and cleaning. I sneak to Cost Plus for a few odds and ends, and end up buying myself a dress (because I’m alone! And I can! …and I no longer have a sense of fashion. I wear it at the party, and a friend asks if I’m wearing a nightgown.) Back home, I tackle the toilet seat. I had bought a new one weeks ago, but hadn’t been able to get the old one off. Armed with vise-grips and WD-40, I invoke Corky from Bound. After a stupid amount of time, chipping the toilet, and making a greasy, black, splattered mess, I finally give up. (I’m sooo Violet.) It wouldn’t be a birthday party without a bathroom disaster. I pick up the kids, and try to get them the help me with the yard work. They disappear into the house. I ignore them. Next thing I know, L is melting down, and I realize I forgot to feed them lunch. It’s 3:00. Things have certainly changed since the days of weighing their poop. The plan was to head to Costco early for supplies, but we don’t make it there until 5. Maddy has to come because I can’t stand that place. So much waste! So much crap! Who on Earth needs 500 plastic forks? Everyone says it’s the best place to get everything for a party, so I fake grin and bear it. The kids are cranky, too. At first D won’t be put down, and lays his head on my shoulder, tucking it in. The cuddle is so nice — and missed — I let him stay, and carry him around the monstrous aisles while Maddy searches for Tequila. D finally lets me put him down so I can search for brands that at least pay lip service to things I care about. When I see brands I think are responsible, humane or organic, I make a mental note not to buy them anymore as they probably aren’t what they advertise since they are at Costco. I buy them now since they are the best option. The boys are momentarily impressed by our cart with a side-by-side seat. Cringing, I let them eat multiple samples of sausages and sweets. L wants to be held. I admit I’m a little bit proud of being strong enough to still carry my six-year-olds around. When their toes are dragging on the floor, I’ll still be trying to carry them. After a while, L settles on my shoulders, playing with my hair, covering my eyes. I give up trying to blindly control the freight train of a cart, and block traffic in the main aisle, waiting for Maddy and D to return from the frozen foods section, which is in a different time zone. Maddy gives L a turn on her shoulders, and I race off to find limes, cheese… I savor the alone time. It’s like a mini-vacation to the land of paper goods. The tissue is bundled into boxes of 20. Where would we store 20 boxes of (scented, bleached, not-recycled) tissue?? The one shelf with any space in our tiny house is already spoken for by 500 forks. I can’t bring myself to buy tissue. This place galls me. We check out, exhausted and starving, and buy the boys Costco hotdogs for dinner: a new low. Neither Maddy nor I eat anything. L falls asleep in the car with ketchup dripping from his half-eaten hotdog, and he almost allows me to put him to bed when we get home. It’s almost his regular bedtime. But he overhears Maddy offer D half a birthday cookie in the kitchen, and he bounces back up.

I tell friends we don’t need any help, that everything is under control. We have until 1:00 the next day to finish decorating, set up the yard, make a few pans of baked Ziti, prep burgers, frost cupcakes and the rest of it. It’s all good. We got this. Then, like a rejected sit-com script, Maddy’s work computer breaks down. She has to go back to work, leaving me alone with the car to unload, the boys to put to bed, the Ziti to make, and the house to decorate. The boys need a lot of attention to settle down, after all, they ate cookies and Costco for dinner, AND it’s the night before their party we’ve been planning for weeks. I don’t realize that we left the car doors and the back gate hanging open until it’s almost dark. Our backyard has a carport at one end, and the car-sized back gate to an alley that runs behind the house. I head out, and as I reach the car door, someone coughs. I jump out of my skin. It sounds a few feet away, and I freeze, listening. Eventually I decide it must have come from the alley, and I walk out the gate to see. I think maybe it’s a neighbor, walking their dog, but the alley is deserted. “Hello? Is there anyone there?” My voice sounds really loud. There’s no answer. I try to create a not-scary reality by saying “I heard a cough. Is someone close by?” Still, no answer. I close the gate, and head inside quickly, locking the door. I’m sure it was nothing, but I’m home alone with the still-awake kids and not taking any chances. Maybe Maddy will get home soon. The kids are bouncing off the walls. I try to explain to them why they need sleep in an overly-calm, deadly serious voice, then sneak out of their room to do breathing exercises. Between that and putting up decorations, I avoid unloading the car until it’s completely dark. A flashlight makes the shadows darker. I imagine I locked some vagrant in the car when I closed it up earlier. He’s been eating the hotdog buns and tortilla chips, and he’ll come come flying out of the car in a startled mess when I open the door. He won’t be able to get out the now-closed gate, and we’ll both panic…

There’s nobody eating the chips in the car, and I unload everything without mishap. We forgot to buy Ziti. Maddy comes home with the broken computer and some Ziti from the corner store, and sets up the computer along with a box of installation discs, wires and paraphernalia on the dining room table. I boil pasta and cut balloon strings while she frantically tries to find a boot disc. We try to make a boot disc for the PC using my Mac. No dice. She ends up having to go back to the office, and is then up until 3 at home working on it. At first I can’t sleep because I’m anxious, and feel like I should be doing something to help. Finally I give in, and go to bed around 1.

It’s party day. The morning of their sixth birthday party, the boys are ignored while I run around setting up and sending frantic texts to a few people to try to garner help. I’m terrible at asking for help. I generally won’t ask people with kids… because they have kids! I won’t ask twice. I am understated, like, “If you could come early, that’d be cool.” instead of “OMFG! I NEED HELP!” Maddy is still working on the broken computer, which is indispensable at work. I set up tents and tables outside, decide on a layout, and panic that we forgot to pick up a propane tank for the grill. Thank heaven for the friends who show up and frost cupcakes, bring ice, propane and onions, prep hamburger, blow up balloons, and run around making it all come together. Maddy heads back to work, but comes back before 1:00, even though the computer still isn’t finished. She gets the kids juicing limes for Margaritas. My parents arrive, and are put to work. The bounce house arrives, and it is actually a castle with a Star Wars banner velcroed to the front. I don’t care, not even a little. The party takes flight. Two dear friends work the grill and food for the first few hours of the party, making it so Maddy and I can actually socialize, making it so, instead of appearing totally frazzled and still in my pajamas, I remember to put on the big earrings that turn the house dress into an outfit. Someone hands me a drink. After a while, Maddy informs me the dress is see-thru, and much better suited as a swimsuit cover up. I find a sweater. My mom takes pictures, which is incredibly awesome because I take none. A couple of friends assure me the dress isn’t really see-thru, but one of my mom’s pictures captures a pretty clear shadow of my underwear. I’m sufficiently mortified. But it’s not my party, and nobody cares. I can’t find my drink. Every few minutes, the kids race past with a gaggle of friends, from the bounce house to their room, from the balloons to the bubbles. They barely acknowledge their grandparents, or any adults for that matter. Kids are everywhere, playing. I don’t hear screaming, all must be well. Bubbles float through the yard. Leanne grills platter after platter of dogs and burgers. Parents sit around with plates of food trying to get their kids to take a bite of hot dog as they fly past. We don’t play organized games. The kids spread themselves out, bouncing, chasing bubbles, picking blackberries from the alley, playing with DnL’s toys… it never feels too crowded. The beauty of attending a cooperative preschool, and the main reason I feel comfortable inviting over 40 children to our home, is that the culture of the school is maintained. Any parent can tell a kid what’s up because all the parents know all the kids, and everyone knows the rules. If I had my way, I would have invited the entire school, but we would have had to rent a hall.  In truth, this is a bit of a preschool farewell party. This community has become so familiar to me over the past three year. I will miss it dearly.

Time flies. Eventually, I remember to bring out the 3-tiers of cookies and the 3-tiers of cupcakes. We can’t get the candles lit. Mental note: Candles need to happen inside! This happened last year. The bravest little candles wont stay lit around a whisper of a breeze, even though, if we were inside, it would take three monster blows with spittle to blow them out. Neither kid seems to care when we launch into song with only one candle lit. I lead the first “Happy Birthday” too high, so everyone sings it in a different key. I can’t reach the high note. I go for baritone on the second one. Each of my sons, now six-years-old, stands grinning and surrounded by a pack of friends, his face lit by the pink light coming through the red tent. I think this may be the only time I see my kids in focus the entire day. The next moment is a crush of children wanting their cookies and cupcakes, parents scooping ice cream, hiding the matches. I guess that’s the pinnacle of a party, the crest of the wave, the moment you give a gaggle of amped-up children sugar.

It’s movie time. We’d planned an outdoor theater by putting up tent walls and hanging a white sheet at one end. Unfortunately, putting up the tent walls creates a sail effect that threatens to blow both tents over the roof. A couple preschool parents jump in, and we move the theater into the boys’ room. After a few anxious minutes getting the projector working (turns out the adapter to plug a three-prong plug into a wall outlet with two-prongs is bad,) the movie launches. It’s magic. I get to sit outside drinking a margarita on a beautiful day in my freshly weed-whacked yard, chatting with other awesome adults! During a kids’ birthday party!! This is all I wanted, my pinnacle. Happy birthday, Mama. The boys’ room gets trashed with popcorn, chips and spilled drinks, but it’s totally worth it. Guests begin drifting out before the movie, and the last one leaves around 7 PM. 

When I ask the boys what their favorite part of the party was, what will they remember, both boys yell, “PRESENTS,” and run away. We don’t even open presents at the party. The boys will spend the next two days obsessed with their presents. I will try to find the right time to sit around opening them, but it will work out better for the boys to open one (against my wishes,) enjoy it for a few hours (while I freak out searching for the to/from cards under the growing pile of rubble,) then open another (against my wishes.) Each time I explain to the boys how I need them to wait until I say it is time to open presents, L will say, annoyed,  “But they’re my presents!” and I will be too tired to argue effectively.

My father, who has written me maybe three times in my life, wrote an email after the party. (So you DO know how to use email, Dad.) To clarify what a big deal this is, I got a note from him about sports injuries sometime around 2004, and before that, he mailed a piece of lined legal paper when I was a sophomore in college that read, “Roses are red. Violets are blue. You get a puppy, and we’ll kill you.” This time he wrote a nice note about the party that even said, “you deserve a medal for all the work you put in.” Medal received. Thanks, Dad!