So if you could pick the month your child celebrated their birthday what month would you pick? I sure wouldn't pick January. I mean really. We just had Christmas and I had to deal with all that mess and stress and presents. Now I am going through all that again.
Abby will celebrate her birthday this month. Jade in February and Maddison in March. The big girls this year are having parties with their friends from school. Talk about a headache trying to be a fabulous mom and pick how many friends they can have and what we will do. Also talk about breaking the bank. Parties can get spendy. I had to order Jumbo Heart Sprinkles yesterday on-line because I have looked many places as well as my mom looking and neither one of us could find them. They are needed for Abby's birthday idea I can not share yet (sorry that is rather mean to not share but you will see it soon enough). Then I go to make my order and they tell me I needed to spend at least $5. Then of course they charged me $6 for shipping. Yes, I could have tried to come up with another idea but how many times is my little Abbygail Rose going to turn 6? Yes, that's right. Only once. What she wants she should get... well to a certain point.
Then when Jade cleaned her backpack out yesterday she had a birthday invite for a girl in her class. I had told Jade she could have 3 friends if we went out for Pizza for her party. Then I felt if this girl invited her she should invite her to her party. Well this girl isn't one of the 3. So I asked Jade who the top 4 were she would invite. Ok not that girl. Top 5. Not that girl. Ok top 6 not that girl.
Then I asked Jade, "Do you play with this girl at school"?
"Well, no".
"Ok, do you want to go to her party"?
"Well, yes." (yeah dumb question)
"Who did she invite to her party".
"She gets to invite all the girls."
"Like all the girls in the class"?
"Yes, mom she gets to invite 11".
Ok who invented birthday parties? I would so like their phone number. Maybe their address too so I can send them the bill for Jade's party!
Oh and to add to all that stress Abby and her brother (hubby's oldest son we don't see much ) share a birthday! Yes, how crazy is that? They both were born on January 11th! So we have to remember to get him a gift and we have a hard enough time buying him stuff for Christmas.
3 comments:
I set rules about birthdays. 1 big party when you are 7 years old. Otherwise just 1 friend can be invited for an overnight.
I have no desire to compete with the big parties either...no fun and that's the point right? to have fun?
As far as gifts go, I set a limit for friends to $10. No more.
Sorry you are stressed! But just remember that it's okay to say no to some things. :)
Growing up my mom's rule was we could have 1 or 3 friends at our parties, never 2 and no more than 3. That way it was an even number so there would be less chance of someone getting left out. I think I will do the same with our kids. It just gets to be so darn expensive. Oh and while I was reading about that girl who invited all 11 girls my thoughts were that either that girl doesn't have any friends or that she is spoiled and her parents have way to much money to waste.
When I was young, I never had a "friends" party due to lack of funds. I have an early summer birthday and sometimes we did a backyard meal type thing for family.
I decided I wanted different for my daughter so we DID the elaborate (but still not super spendy as we could not afford them) parties. I planned, shopped clearance racks for gift bag stuff, etc. Until she was 5 they were friend and family combined deals.
The girl with 11 kids at the party...my guess is thats a parent who also thinks everyone on the team deserves the first place award for the league...(sorry...a peeve of mine). for those years at about 6-9 years old, we did parties at a locaton, not here at home and she could invite no more than how old she was, but my daughter is selective in her friends and usually she had about 4-5 which helped if we had to provide the transportation.
We did things like going to the community center play place (gerbil cage for kids...tubes and slides and all), or the swimming pool there...or a movie (like we did Princess Diaries, I had a large purse full of candies prepped into baggies for each, also had bottles of apple juice and large baggies so we could buy popcorn and get refills)..we did a sleepover in there a few times...they baked (had a cookie party..I got my mom to make little aprons for me for a take home deal for them all)...stuff like that. I tried to be a bit outside the box compared to all the other parties they were all doing at the time.
Decide the line and hold to it so its not something you dread!
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