Par-TAY!

When I was growing up, my parents informed us that we were allowed two (2) birthday parties during the eighteen years we lived under their roof.  So every year when the birthday rolled around, you’d have to think really hard, Is this the year I want to spend one of my two birthday parties?  In my case it helped to be anti-social.  I had my first birthday part at age 11.  It was a slumber party.  It was fun.  I had my second party at age 13.  Only one of my friends could make it.  It was still fun.  (Yes, I know it sounds pathetic beyond reason, but I had less than a handful of close friends at that age, and it was really okay.  The rest of being that age sucked, but the friendships were okay.  It helped that I was anti-social.)

My oldest child had her first birthday party at age six.  I didn’t want to throw her a birthday party because Princess Zurg being Princess Zurg, I knew we would have to throw her one every single year after that.  But she had asked for a birthday party–I think–and my husband thought we should give her one.  As I said, I didn’t want to do it because a) it was raising the bar for future birthdays and b) I’m not a party person.  This is one of those times when it doesn’t help to be anti-social.  Fortunately, my husband is not only a fan of raising the bar, but he’s also a party person.  So he basically planned and executed PZ’s whole birthday party.  His mother was in town, and she helped out, too.  I did almost nothing.  I baked a cake.  From a box.  Seriously, almost nothing.  It still stressed me out.

Every year since then, we’ve thrown birthday parties for each of the two older children.  This year Sugar Daddy wanted to throw a party for Elvis, but I strongly discouraged it.  I do not need the bar raised for any more children at this juncture.  I would rather wait for Elvis to decide on his own that his parents need to jump a little higher.  Anyway, as far as Elvis is concerned, every day is a holiday.  SD seems to think we need to correct disparities among our kids before they become aware of them.  Me, I’m from the “in my day, we didn’t have birthday parties–we made cake out of dirt and set our hair on fire and we liked it!” school of parenting.  Because I’m lazy, number one, and number two–well, it’s really all about number one.  Does there really need to be a number two?

The problem is that I am just not an “event” person.  I like routine and consistency.  My idea of mixing things up is to…you know, I tried to come up with an example, and I just couldn’t.  I don’t like to mix things up.  I like things to stay the same as much as possible.  Except for the things I want to be different, of course.  I colored my hair Saturday night–a different color.  It’s like I went crazy.  I need everything else to be stable for a while so I can adjust.

Although my husband has consistently done the lion’s share of the work for our kids’ birthday parties, I still feel a tremendous amount of stress over them.  I think what worries me is that the kids won’t have fun, and then they’ll want me to do something about it.  And obviously I’ll be screwed because if you haven’t been paying attention, “fun” is not my strong suit.  “Fun” is SD’s department, but I have a feeling that were we to have a “fun” emergency and I looked to SD to solve it, he’d say something like, “Geez, is it not enough that I’ve done everything else?  Can’t you make a single contribution?”  And obviously I’ll be screwed. 

So I’m especially anxious this year because PZ wants a party (again), and my trouble is two-fold:

1.  She’s turning 10, and neither SD nor I know what most 10-year-old girls are into, or at least what they won’t scoff and turn up their noses at.  We can’t use our own child as an example of a 10-year-old girl because if there’s one thing we do know about 10-year-old girls, it’s that they are not like our 10-year-old girl.  If they were, Barkis Bittern would be bigger than Mickey Mouse and Hannah Montana wouldn’t have a career.

2.  If by some miracle we could come up with something 10-year-old girls would think was cool and wouldn’t bore PZ to tears (or alternatively, incite her to violence), it wouldn’t matter because PZ is also inviting boys to this year’s party.  It makes sense because the vast majority of her classmates are boys, and I’m glad that she has co-ed friendships, but it sure does throw a monkey wrench in the party planning machine, which is not exactly humming along in the first place.  If it were a party just for boys, that would be one thing, but girls and boys?  Between the ages of eight and eleven?  Addendum:  Make that 14 neurotypical girls and six autism-spectrum boys.  Most of the girls already know each other (as they are either from church or PZ’s old school) but don’t know the boys (who are from her new school), and vice versa.  (No, we’re not expecting 20 children to show up, but past experience has taught us to cast a wide net.)  You can see why my brain is about to explode.

So I did what any modern parent in this dilemma would do.  I consulted the internet.  It was not helpful.  The internet told me to provide a lot of snacks and play a lot of popular music, and the kids would just mingle as kids that age are wont to do.  Really?  Truly, internet?  I’m no expert on tween-age kids, but methinks you are trying to pull a fast one on me.  Anyway, PZ doesn’t like popular music, and the sound of her complaining would drown out any mingling that might miraculously occur under those circumstances.

The internet also told me I could throw an American Idol party.  Um…yeah.  This may sound, well, un-American, but we actually don’t watch AI at our house.  I don’t think PZ knows what an American Idol is, and even if she did, I doubt she’d approve.  The internet also gave me a lot of ideas for destination parties.  Like bowling–bzz! try again.  Or a swim party.  In April.  In Oregon.  Moving right along.  “Have each guest bring a can of cat or dog food in lieu of a gift and take a trip to the local animal shelter.”  Who are these people?

The internet also had a lot of advice about co-ed slumber parties.  For tweens!  Not that it would be any more appropriate for older kids, but still–what am I?  Am I some kind of sick fuddy-duddy because I would not in a million years if you paid me throw a co-ed slumber party?  Won’t they have plenty of time for that when they’re in college?  It’s no wonder I’m socially handicapped.

The internet also told me that all tweens “live for the mall,” and a good idea is to give them all some money and set them loose on said mall.  That’s when I began to suspect that the internet didn’t know what it was talking about. 

Which brings me back to my own expertise, aka the Blank Slate.  I went shopping with the younger two kids this morning so we could buy decorative birthday plates and napkins for Elvis’s birthday, which is tomorrow.  Elvis is still at a low-maintenance age.  All he needs is a cake and some fire, and he’s good to go.  I was hoping to get some Thomas the Tank Engine merchandise, but would you believe it, they were all out of Thomas.  Oh, they had some Thomas blower-thingies and some Thomas stickers and a few of the world’s cheapest and most pointless Thomas “party favors”–I say “party favors,” because had the package not informed me of its contents, I would have had no idea how to label them.  But all the useful stuff was sold out. 

The pickings were slim in general, and the only thing I could interest him in–besides the red lawn signs which said, “The party STOP’s here!”–were the Barney plates and cups.  Fortunately, I am not Barney-averse.  Unfortunately, since I had Girlfriend with me, too, I ended up buying probably twice as much as we needed.  I briefly considered throwing PZ an Ironic Barney Party, but I thought that might be too meta for the tween crowd. 

So I decided I’d ask some real people–like you folks who are on the internet, but not of the internet.  Tell me what you think is a good party idea for tweenage boys and girls.  Something low-maintenance and on the cheap.  If you can’t say something non-sarcastic, don’t say anything at all.

On second thought, say whatever you want.  It will toughen me up for when the tweens besiege my house with their pre-adolescent discontent.