- Realize that for once, your child’s birthday does not fall on Mother’s Day weekend this year. In a moment of weakness, ask the to-be-4-year-old if he wants a party “with all his friends.”
- Hear about “my party with all my friends” for weeks on end.
- Remember that you’re actually an introvert, and the idea of dozens of small children and their parents coming to your house and requiring social interaction seems somewhat akin to a Steven King novel come to life.
- Realize there’s absolutely no way you can go back on “my party with all my friends” and break the to-be-4-year-old’s heart. There are lots of other ways you’re failing him; this one is relatively easy to prevent. There’s always beer to help with the conversation.
- Briefly flirt with the idea of creating ingenious, Pinterest-worthy handcrafted invitations with whimsical supplies collected from nature and Michael’s Crafts.
- Laugh at yourself, then open up Shutterfly in a browser, add to-be-4-year-old’s name to a handy template invitation, agonize over timing (do you really want to feed a dozen munchkins a meal? How long is ‘long enough’ for to-be-4-year-old to feel feted, but not so long as to instigate a meltdown snowball reaction?). Click “order.”
- Deliver an invitation into the cubby of each of 26 pre-schoolers at daycare. Well, that is, into about 20 cubbies. Somehow you missed six cubbies and had leftover invites, but a kind teacher took pity on you and agreed to ensure all of the social circle of mini-people duly received invites.
- Wait for RSVPs, though deep down you know pretty much for sure that the kid into whose mouth your to-be-4-year-old inserted rocks on the playground is likely a “no thanks.” Also, realize that Bryce and Pryce are actually two different children, not just your to-be-4-year-old’s somewhat lispy pronunciation variations.
- Order a ridiculous amount of construction-themed party supplies from Amazon Prime. Luckily, this theme is a road well traveled before you, so choices are copious.
- Order a construction-themed cake from the amazing professional glass hanger/ hobby bass fisherman / husband of your husband’s coworker named Floyd who somehow in his spare time creates ridiculously amazing cakes.
- Get eight RSVPs from classmates. Realize that every party to-be-4-year-old is going to have until he’s 12 is going to involve diggers and dump trucks because you now have at least a 10-year supply of construction-themed party supplies.
- Wonder how you’re going to fill 2 ½ hours of time with 4-year-olds in your back yard. Come to the conclusion that this is, in fact, the precise reason why bounce houses were invented. Order bounce house rental.
- Plan a thoughtful, strategized trip to Wegmans the afternoon before the party to purchase healthy, organic snacks for partygoers.
- Hit traffic on 95, realize you need the 2 hours it’s going to take to get to Wegmans and back to hunt down and eliminate the tumbleweeds of dog hair from your house.
- Say “fuck it,” throw your morals to the wind and go to WalMart to stock up on chips and veggie and fruit trays.
- Impulse buy like a fiend in the party supply section of Wally World, where you realize that bubble machine is seriously what’s been missing in your life and you MUST HAVE IT NOW.
- Get home. Realize that you and your husband have actually not purchased a gift for the to-be-4-year-old. That might fly for the first three years, but his cognitive skills have developed enough to notice that dissonance now. Send husband to buy a toy tractor.
- Get 2 hours of sleep realizing that in mere hours you’re going to have make conversation with people you only know to say hello and commiserate about tantrums with.
- The morning of. Break out the party supplies. Pick up the cake. Clean the house (who am I kidding, my mom really cleaned most of it). Watch bounce house inflate and in the process literally blow to-be-4-year-old’s mind. Tell him he can’t go near it until he naps. #winning
- Get tables, snacks, drinks, party favors set up. Have a brief but seriously scary worry that you’re going to be one of those moms who make a plaintive post on Facebook about no one at all coming to their kid’s birthday party. Worry that you’re going to have to eat massive amounts of snacks on your own if no kids ever show up.
- See cars start to roll in, feel much better about life.
- Desperately try to remember names of the parents with whom you’re chatting, as that weird mental disconnect that doesn’t allow you to reliably connect names and faces is in full force.
- Relieve husband from bounce house supervision duty. Intermittently remind munchkins that it’s not WWE time.
- Feed cake and ice cream to a herd of to-be-4-year-olds buzzing on bounce house and bubble highs.
- Return to monitoring bounce house activities post-cake and realize that sugar has definitively brought out the Lord Of The Flies tendencies in these to-be-4-year-olds. Glare stink-eye at the elbow-throwers and admonish the full-on tacklers. Pray for no blood or bruises.
- Stop the dogs from cleaning up the vomit your very own to-be-4-year-old produced when the bounce house met a stomach full of cake and ice cream. Thank the gods above he made it out of the bounce house first.
- Wave good bye to all the wonderful people who trekked all the way to your middle-of-nowhere house to make this day the “BEST DAY EVER” for your to-be-4-year-old.
- Drink beer.
Life, love and ridiculousness with Captain, Toby, Turtle, Biscuit and Spork
The Toby 