The Big Birthday Bash

P achieved the birthday bash of his dreams.  It's funny, I'd always fallen on the "set small expectations" side of the scale.  As in, do next to nothing for celebrations, so that any little thing seems fabulous.  One gift.  A chosen meal.  That about sums it up ;)

But P has been indoctrinated in our culture (thank you, Hollywood) and seen big blow outs and grown a dream sliding towards the other side of that scale.   So I embraced our switched sides, remembering another mum I once met who'd exclaimed, "Oh, we have a Huge bash every year for S, we love really celebrating her birth."

Let me say up front.  I learned I'm not the sorta mom that can slide to this end of the scale on a yearly basis.

And, turns, out, P isn't the kinda kid who could either :)

But, for this year, for this one time, it was Great.  He had a ton of friends show up.  He had his chosen clowns from around the corner come.  He had his stacked cake.  His house decorated.  His party favors made.  And he had fun.

I think the clowns were a bit much, personally.  But I'm sound sensitive.  Things were rolling along nicely and they burst in singing happy birthday and I about climbed out the window :)  Then they set up shop upstairs, many nicely seated themselves for the show and.... the Little Man continued hanging from the rafters. Almost right over the clowns.  Yes, this was awkward :)

And this is what I learned from having a big birthday bash:  Screw general judgement.

That's a hard lesson for me.  I'm kinda a people pleaser.  There were a million things P wanted that I (internally) questioned.  Like chocolate dragons for the gift bags?  Oh, but not all parents will want to take home huge chunks of sugar....  Clowns and balloons... too over the top??

The birthday boy hanging upside down during the entertainment?  Oy vey.

And I'm sure, to those that don't know him that well (probably everyone but me) that it looked like he wasn't enjoying the entertainment or something.  But I knew it was the way he was dealing with being the center of attention and so much noise and activity.  He always recedes to movement, to climbing.  So I could challenge him down, to "look right" during his party, to make me feel more comfortable.... and I heavily considered this...  Or, remember that this was His party and he wasn't hurting a fly, that everyone could judge it however they needed and I didn't need to own that.  Even though I very much like to own other's thoughts about me because then I can make them nice thoughts :)

Then they all ran around with their custom balloons, whopping each other and laughing and climbing the rafters and hiding in the loft and dropping crumbs everywhere.  It seemed they had fun.

But P was overwhelmed.  He had a couple friends that really wanted to play with him and he just didn't' have time to individually play with each pal.  He recognized all of this and talked to me about it after the party, explaining that he'd loved his party, but thinks next year, maybe, just 3 friends and a pizza sounds good...

(Non-clown) music to my ears.

I think Z may have appreciated the party more than anyone.  She danced her little toes off to the clown's music, bopped balloons with the best of them and I even found her hugging guests on the couch!  Yes indeedy, this little family of introverts has finally landed an extrovert...