My son planned his 5 year old birthday party
for six months. And I'm honestly scared for his Bar Mitzvah. He kept
talking about "the list" and who was on the list and what we were going
to do and the favors and etc., etc. I'm not sure who this child was,
but for him, his 5 year old birthday party was a very big deal.
We eventually settled on a local firehouse
that allowed you to use the party room if you made a donation to the
firefighters. And who doesn't like firefighters? They save your life
in a fire. And I somehow missed that this meant I would be responsible
for doing absolutely everything. The food, the entertainment, the
favors, everything.
The week before the party was the perfect storm of crazy week at work,
a crazy week at home, and out of town guests coming in for the BIG
PARTY. And of course the morning of the party we were hit with
torrential thunderstorms and we woke up to no power. Which in itself,
was enough to make me cry having spent 4 days without power after the
most recent snowstorm.
But
the power came back on after 3 hours, and we managed to load all of the
food and fireman hats and coloring books and balloons and cake into the
car in the rainstorm, and unload it once we got to the firehouse. (So
much for nice hair in pictures.) My son's friends arrived, parents
arrived, and for two hours I entertained 20 children, age 2-5. The
fireman gave a fantastic tour. The children put stickers on plastic
firemen hats, colored fire related coloring books, played pin the tail
on the fire dog, and of course, ate ice cream and cake.
And at
the end of it all, my newly five year old son looked at me and said,
"Mommy, it was the perfect party. I couldn't have asked for anything
better. But what are we doing for my school party on Monday?"
