Kid's Birthday Parties: Parents I Want Your Input

Today I received the following email from a good friend.

Ok- so I will preface this by saying I despise most kid's b'day parties...I got burned out on attending the parties thrown by the private school parents--fully catered, clowns, tumble bus, Spiderman delivering the cake, $25 gifts expected by the birthday brat and every mommy trying to one up the previous mommy. My kids HATED me, cause I wouldn't do it. Absolutely refused-I believe in saving it for a special b'day like - 10 or 16, 18 or 21...something big seems a bit more easy to swallow then..every year. NOW- the pendulum has swung the other way and the past two invities have come with a fee! One is a skating party $2 admission - plus $5 skate rental and the other is bowling- entry fee, plus shoe rental.. Seems odd, would seem that if one can't pay for ones guests one should try having a party at home...seems the need to keep indulging ones kids with un-affordable parties is somehow socially acceptable? I guess I don't have to worry about Spiderman and the tumble bus showing up if the host parent is asking guests to pay to attend....and not that it matters, but I could afford to pay for the party and/or for my child to atend the parties with fees, but the principal of the concept is bothering me...so I would love to hear your opinion...maybe I should just have a glass of wine and get over it?

I tend to prefer more low-key parties for the kiddos. I read somewhere that a good rule of thumb is to invite as many guests as the age of the child. My gut tells me that's sound advice.

Sure, it is fun to see your child's eyes light up when the moonbounce gets delivered or they ring the bell at the top of the climbing wall, but how do you celebrate the big milestones when a Kindergartener's party costs $400?

I don't know if I have a strong opinion about charging kids to come to a party. I suspect Emily Post would say that as the host you are responsible for ensuring your guests have a good time.

What do you say to my friend? She needs to RSVP soon.

Annoyed Doesn't Even Begin...

April 2008

April 2009

Sure my toes aren't bruised this time, but could the nurse have cleaned the Betadine off so I didn't look like I had just completed a carrot juice foot bath?!

The surge to my hits from the c@st fet!shists is the only good thing about this. They'll be return readers, right?

Fifteen Years of ER (and my life)

I had a 13" color television, a queen-sized bed and my own room in a Washington, DC townhouse on Capitol Hill that I shared with two hill staffers. We had a one year-old dog, jobs that provided health insurance, covered rent and groceries and bought us a few beers a week.

We were 24.

For some odd reason, I sat on the floor alone in my room that night in September to watch the pilot of this new hospital drama I had heard about.

It was early September a few years earlier when I discovered the fever and odd swelling on the right side of my face and neck was mumps.

"Mumps?! Who gets mumps?"

The infirmary wanted to quarantine me. I insisted that I lived off campus and agreed to refrain from kissing young, virile boys until I was no longer contagious, so they let me recuperate at home (where I secretly made a list of boys who deserved to be kissed by a mump-afflicted girl).

When I was a kid my mom was an ER nurse. This meant that she performed our throat cultures herself at home using what felt like a wooden spoon with a nerf basketball on the end. It also meant that when we needed a booster vaccination she might bring us by the ER for a quick stab on our way to the mall or the grocery store or my grandma's--or sometimes not.

My vaccination records from my elementary school days are a bit sketchy.

That's what we figured when, as a 20 year-old, I developed what looked in the mirror like a mild case of elephantiasis.

(As a complete aside, this post was going in an entirely different direction when I started it and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able bring it all around again. Trust me. My original concept was brilliant.)

So despite my mom's home diagnoses and drive-by vaccinations, she had some experience in an ER. (Like on those Christmas Days we sat and stared at the presents under the tree waiting for her to get off of her 7-3 p.m. shift. Torture to a seven year-old I tell you.) And THAT's why I called her the morning after the ER pilot to see what she thought.

"The medicine is a bit overly dramatic, but the show comes closest to any I've seen in capturing the drastic swings in activity in an ER. You can be sitting there one minute reorganizing the ace bandages and the next minute up to your elbows in drunks and motorcycle accident victims."

Yeah, I can eat through any conversation.

I liked the show too. I watched it regularly for the first seven seasons or so, took a little break and then thank the heavens for the miracle of TiVO was able to follow it every week again for the past five years.

Today, I don't have a room of my own. I do however have a 52" TV, a queen-sized bed and own a house in the suburbs with my husband. We share it with three wild boys and an almost one year-old dog. We have jobs that provide health insurance, cover the mortgage and groceries and buy us a few beers a week--or so it feels in this economy.

I'm 39.

Tonight, I sat in the family room with my two youngest sons constantly asking them to keep it down and rewinding the DVR trying to watch the series finale of ER.

The change in Noah Wyle is what struck me the most maybe because we're almost the same age. The 15 years since the pilot have created for him more depth in a way that makes his face more interesting to me now than when he was playing that young intern.

Those same 15 years have given my life depth that I never could have imagined sitting on the floor alone in my room that night in September.