Birthday Party

We are heading out to pick up 5 girls for Maddie's birthday party in awhile. What is it about birthday parties that I dread? After they are over I'm usually all - "that wasn't so bad", but up until the time I dread them. The only thing I hate worse than birthday parties are sleepover birthday parties - they are the bane of my existence. 6-10 little girls spending the ENTIRE night - dear God, help me. Not this year though. I put the kabash on that right away, so we are swimming, going to Bead Alley (to make necklaces and bracelets) and then to pizza and HOME - meaning all of them to their own homes. Even I can survive this.

How old is too old for birthday parties? Even my 16 year old still has parties when some of my friends quit letting their kids have parties when they are 12 - not sure why. Maybe because of the paragraph above that I just wrote. Maybe I am not alone on the birthday dreading.

When the girls were little I was that insane mom that everyone hated because the parties were huge, detailed and ridiculous. Little did they know I wanted to run screaming for a month before hand, while I sat hand making the pinata of the head of Blue from Blue's Clues because my kid had to have it and it was before this show was so huge and NO party store had a pinata of that kind. Now they are easy. This one was basically thrown together yesterday. So what am I bitchin' about, right?

After this, I'm off the hook until February when it's Brenna's turn to be 10, she has informed me it is her first 'double-digit' birthday, so it needs to be big. Great.

My advice to new parents? Don't start making their birthdays such a big deal. Start out with nice, quiet, simple parties and then you are not setting yourself up for a lifetime of dread. Or, maybe if you aren't as neurotic as I am - go ahead - party away - you have nothing to lose but your mind.