I don’t really know how these kids do it – so many parties! Seems like every kid in the class was born between April and June 2000. And my oldest is invited to all of these!
(That’s an important difference between us and the other parents, I suppose: we felt we could not invite every single child from her kindergarten class, while it seems that most of these parties are like little K-203 reunions!)
The stress that’s out there: all the energy, the activities, the sugar! It’s no wonder there aren’t more meltdowns at these parties like the one the birthday boy had last week.
It started out pretty straightforward: the boy’s father had rented out enough lanes, and one for the grown-ups, too, if they wanted to bowl. The kid even started off his game with two strikes. You could tell he bowls more than just at parties. As the guests continued to arrive, the boy’s mother came with lots of goodies – neon plastic necklaces, snacks, bowling pins to sign, and other stuff. When we had arrived, the party staffer took my oldest’s name and food order; it was nice to get a choice instead of just pizza. As the food arrived, I made sure she ate hers, and that she drank only water instead of cola (I’d indulged her earlier in the afternoon with a Slurpee, which we’d shared, so she was prepared and fine with the water option – and she was not the only kid there drinking just water). It was pretty crazy, the party, but generally the kids were well-enough behaved.
Then it was cake time, and it seemed that there was some trouble. I don’t think he got the cake he wanted; the baker could not make a cake shaped like a race car, but the boy’s mother did put a couple of Hot Wheels cars on top and even had a picture of a racing car on top, too. As she lit the candles and we gathered around to sing, the boy was crying. We started to sing, and he got more upset. He told his mother he wanted only her to sing, so she did, though she admitted not being a good singer. I bet he wanted her to sing softly, like he and she were alone. When she called him by a name he no longer likes – you know how kids are when they outgrow that version of the name that ends in the “ee” sound, like “Timmy” or “Mikey” – he banged his fist on the table, and spilled a cup of soda; one of the young guests bore the brunt of the spill on her shirt, and she started to cry.
Soon mother and son went aside for some quiet moments, while we all went back to bowling. The girl who got the soda on her shirt was given a new one, bought by the birthday boy’s grandmother. The father did not do much.
When I told this story to my wife, she laughed a little, a knowing mom laugh, because, as she said, it could have been our child, too – you never know with little kids what could set them off. In this case, the loud noises might have bothered him (one of the moms told my wife that her son can’t stand to have anyone sing “Happy Birthday” to him, so they don’t). Maybe he was just tired, or that the normal routine of the day was altered – it was not easy to have a full day of school and then your party afterward. Maybe it was hard on him to have both his parents, who are divorced, in the same space together (I think the father’s current girlfriend was there, but I’m not sure). Maybe it’s just too many kids in one space.
My daughter seems unfazed by it, which is probably a good thing. I don’t know what she takes from it; given her propensity to freely and fully express her emotions, it’s pretty impressive that she’s never really lost it at one of her own parties. I hope the boy remembers it as the party where he had the highest score and not the one where he made his friend’s shirt a mess. I hope also that it’s just one slice – so to speak – of his life, and not one he carries into eternity.
That’s the hardest thing about these parties. You want to make the day so special – and my wife very much believes that your birthday is a sacred day – yet it’s one of only tens of thousands of days your child will live. When he was a boy, my nephew loved the “Happy Birthday” song so much that he wanted it sung all the time, so when we’d be at my in-laws’ for Tuesday dinners, we often just sang it, saying “Happy Tuesday” to him. Maybe he’s got the right idea!
Meltdowns happen – on candles, and with kids. We just have to handle both with care.