Remember all that advice you got and read that told you to keep the birthday parties short and small in time and numbers? Good advice. We’ve managed now with about half a dozen birthday parties in our own house, and we always have lots of fun. The grown-ups know that a party at our house is going to be unique – or should I say, Uniqua?
Yes, this year we had a Backyardigans party, the first of two. Our eldest turns six, and we decided on a “Superheros/Supervillains” party theme, after the episode Race to the Tower of Power.
Something you have to understand about our parties. If you’re invited, you get homework.
Last year, we had a Magic School Bus party and sent out to our invitees a copy of MSB Kicks up a Storm, where Ralphie imagines he is Weather Man. We drew a picture of Ralphie as Weather Man from the book, and had a whole bunch of exercises and weather-related experiments. We also did a puppet show, retelling the story of Eric Carle’s Little Cloud, and sprayed our young audience with water when it rained at the end!
For this year’s party, the invitees got a copy of the Backyardigans book, plus a “key.” The story involves the supervillains attempting to take the “key to the world”; our guests would simply get a goodie bag, if they matched their key to the pattern my wife cut out when she made it. They also were encouraged to make up a superhero or supervillain character and make a badge indicating their special power. My wife was “Super Lunch Lady.” I was “Doctor Oily,” with the power to make things oily (and also to raise the price of gasoline at will). I put moouse in my hair, ending up looking like an unholy cross between Martin Short’s Ed Grimley character and a reject from a Cure video. We also painted a Tower of Power, which was our main decoration.
The guests’ work didn’t end just at finding the key. After my wife painted faces (based on the guests’ superpowers), we had the first of FIVE scavenger hunts. The children had to find letters that spelled the next activity, then of course put the letters together to figure them out. We moved relatively smoothly from one to the next: first they made small clay models from Crayola clay packets, then moved on to making rockets with Alka-Seltzer and apple juice and balloons (we picked up the trick at our last visit to the New York Hall of Science). We were outside launching rockets, and also inside clearing the dining room table for pizza. They found the letters for that outside, of course, and then came in for the food.
After pizza came story time. Usually, this is the time where I do a puppet show, which I’ve done since our oldest’s second birthday party, but this year I decided to make up a story based on the different superhero and supervillain powers the kids had. We created a story where the supervillains plotted to steal all the toys in the world; one boy had the power to control minds and was able to go to a toy store and get the clerk to hand all the stuff over (one of the moms played the clerk). Then another froze our second “guest toy store clerk” and grabbed more loot. Then we were on our way to steak all the donuts in the world when… the superheroes saved the day. They got me, Dr. Oily, by using a giant Clearasil pad.
Okay, I’m kidding about that last bit. But of course the Superheroes stop us, just in time for cake. After cake those remaining got a chance to watch the actual Backyardigans story, but most of the kids said their goodbyes and got some more party favors on their way out, leaving us to clean up and go through the stuff our daughter got.
I have no idea how much this whole thing cost. I don’t know if it was cheaper than doing it at a party place. Most of the goodie bags, rocket supplies, and party favors we probably got at the nearby 99-cent store. The Race to the Tower of Power books we ordered through our local bookstore (www.bookmarkshoppe.com). The pizza was about sixty-five bucks, including tip – four pies, two regular slices, two with slices cut small for kids. My instinct tells me that it was not quite as expensive as going to a place.
For us, what’s important is that our daughters have fun at these parties we make. We involve them in the creative process, get their approval on the ideas we find on-line or come up with on our own, and by keeping the party at our house, we can keep the numbers manageable, both financially and emotionally. It’s a lot to put a classroom full of kids into any space, even a large one. Our timing for each activity is usually pretty smooth – my wife always has her lists – and our preparation was just enough to avoid our own stresses. We also got help from the other moms – there was one dad along today besides me, with a few dads at home taking care of other siblings – as we passed out the pizza and made sure kids got what they needed. My wife’s sister, the science teacher, also was a Big Help, especially with the rockets. And clean-up is never all that terrible, unless someone doesn’t make it to the bathroom in time (which has yet to happen).
One big party down, and one more to go next month…I wonder if we can convince them that these parties can still work when they hit sixteen…