Raina's First and Fifth Birthday Party
Raina turns five years old on Tuesday, May 4th, and she has been counting down the months and days to her birthday since she turned four. Birthdays are exceptionally special days: Raina chooses everything that happens on her special day, including activities and meals. She has never had an official birthday party until now, though. We celebrated age 1 with bananas and a later trip to the Botanical Gardens, age 2 somehow (I honestly don't remember), age 3 with a trip to Chicago "to go to a beach!", and age 4 with a movie and kite flying and a zoo trip and tasty food.
Birthday parties are wasted on younger kids. While it's a lovely chance to get a group of adults together, it doesn't mean anything to a 1 year-old and we can think of far better ways to hang out with our adult friends. Raina attended a birthday party for the first time (and actually understood what it meant) when she was in the 3 - 4 range. Many of her classmates celebrated their 4th birthdays with parties and Eric and I were traumatized by them and frightened by their implications. Neither of us could imagine inviting 20 4 year-olds over for a party, nor could we imagine our contracting with a place for $200-500 to occupy said 4 year-olds. We were relieved and overjoyed when Raina decided that she'd rather have a birthday weekend celebration with her family, rather than a party with her classmates. Hallelujah!
Such luck was a one-time occurrence, and Raina adamantly stuck to a "I want a birthday party" mantra in years 4 - 5. And in that time, Raina has attended MANY birthday parties and all of them were contracted out (Monkey Joe's, Bounce U, SkyZone, Magic House, and a soccer facility). We attended three Bounce U parties in 1 month and they were identical! Same invite, same activities, same pizza, same drinks, same cake, same workers! I understand the appeal of such places, but it just wasn't what I wanted for my child. The cost, the waste, the environmental impact, the cookie-cutter mentality: all combined into an unappealing option.
So, we decided that Raina's first/ fifth birthday party should be different. We went looking for parks with fun playgrounds and sheltered pavilions. We found one just a mile away from our house: the playground was amazing, had two different play spaces and a sprinkler set-up, a nice pavilion immediately adjacent to the playground, and lots of open space so kids could run around and play with balls and bubbles. Even better, the place was deserted each time we visited it, which made us hope we would have it to ourselves on the party day. We reserved the pavilion and got excited.
Next step was the guest list and invitation. It's standard MICDS policy to invite the student's class (10 kids) or the whole JK class (20 kids). Raina wanted to invite all of JK, plus some of her SK friends from extended day. That crew, plus some other friends, meant for a large guest list. It was time for an evite. Raina and I searched through the birthday options and she selected the penguins. (I think they were studying penguins at the time.) We sent out the evite and waited for responses.
Of course, not everyone RSVPed, so we had some wiggle-room in terms of how much cake and how many party favors we needed. We decided on a half-sheet of cake (about 50 servings) and 25 favors. I wanted to give a party favor that 1) wasn't plastic and immediately disposable and 2) would involve parents and child. In the end, we gave each child a packet of wildflower seeds and a set of children's garden gloves.
Fast-forward to party weekend. Friday night saw torrential downpours, lightning, and tornadoes. We devised a "how to cancel the party in case of rain" strategy. Saturday morning, weather.com assured us that the 2-4 p.m. range would be 80 degrees and sunny. Raina's party was a go!
Samantha and I headed out to the park, armed with squeegees and towels. We dried off the entire facility and waited for the sun to come out and take care of the rest. We returned home and packed up all of our plates and forks and 20+ identical cups we just happened to have. (Our environmental policy meant no disposable plates or utensils or cups.) After we finished packing up everything we needed, weather.com's report had changed. Now 2 p.m. would be sunny, and 3 p.m. would be rainy. New plan: play at the playground until it started raining, then eat cake in the pavilion and go home. Twenty minutes later, the report changed again: 2 - 4 p.m. would be rainy. At that point, 12:30 p.m., 1.5 hours away from the party's start, Eric, Samantha, and I hung our heads and crossed our fingers. At 1 p.m., the weather forecast changed again: sun until 4 p.m.
Of course, that's not what really happened. Samantha and I loaded up the car and went to get the cake from Schnucks. Even more panic set in when they couldn't find our cake. Eventually they did and we claimed the personally-designed-by-Raina cake. As we left the facility at 1:10 p.m., it started to rain. The amount of cursing from us was inappropriate but felt justified based on the stress of the day. (At noon, we also had the fire alarm go off at the house and had to deal with a smoky upstairs and the security company. Ugh.)
Samantha and I arrived at the playground, covered the pavilion's tables with tablecloths, set up the cake table, and took towels to the surfaces again. Raina continuously was upbeat; she even said "it's okay if it rains, Mommy, because the trees and flowers need water too!" I gave her a towel and sent her on slide patrol.
Two p.m. saw cloudy skies (but no rain), the first guests happily playing on the playground, and lots of relief from all adults involved. Shortly thereafter was total sun. The kids were frenetic: running, climbing, swinging, dancing, spinning, chasing. We had cake midway through. The kids were somewhat confused by real plates and forks, but seemed pleased with the milk, chocolate milk, or water drink options. (The Whomptons don't believe in soda.) Raina and I also had made dried apricots dipped in chocolate, and the adults ate them with abandon. We stacked all the dirty dishes and cups back together and sent the kids back to the playground.
Eric took lots of pictures -- at least one picture of each guest -- and tried to get a picture of Raina and each guest together. Our thank-you notes were emails to the kids (sent to the parents) and a whole collection of pictures of the child at the party.
In the end, Raina's 1st/5th birthday party had no rain, plenty of sunny skies and light breezes, lots of active kids and happy parents. It was creative, unique, environmentally friendly, and fun. We are thrilled at how successful it was.
Birthday parties are wasted on younger kids. While it's a lovely chance to get a group of adults together, it doesn't mean anything to a 1 year-old and we can think of far better ways to hang out with our adult friends. Raina attended a birthday party for the first time (and actually understood what it meant) when she was in the 3 - 4 range. Many of her classmates celebrated their 4th birthdays with parties and Eric and I were traumatized by them and frightened by their implications. Neither of us could imagine inviting 20 4 year-olds over for a party, nor could we imagine our contracting with a place for $200-500 to occupy said 4 year-olds. We were relieved and overjoyed when Raina decided that she'd rather have a birthday weekend celebration with her family, rather than a party with her classmates. Hallelujah!
Such luck was a one-time occurrence, and Raina adamantly stuck to a "I want a birthday party" mantra in years 4 - 5. And in that time, Raina has attended MANY birthday parties and all of them were contracted out (Monkey Joe's, Bounce U, SkyZone, Magic House, and a soccer facility). We attended three Bounce U parties in 1 month and they were identical! Same invite, same activities, same pizza, same drinks, same cake, same workers! I understand the appeal of such places, but it just wasn't what I wanted for my child. The cost, the waste, the environmental impact, the cookie-cutter mentality: all combined into an unappealing option.
So, we decided that Raina's first/ fifth birthday party should be different. We went looking for parks with fun playgrounds and sheltered pavilions. We found one just a mile away from our house: the playground was amazing, had two different play spaces and a sprinkler set-up, a nice pavilion immediately adjacent to the playground, and lots of open space so kids could run around and play with balls and bubbles. Even better, the place was deserted each time we visited it, which made us hope we would have it to ourselves on the party day. We reserved the pavilion and got excited.
Next step was the guest list and invitation. It's standard MICDS policy to invite the student's class (10 kids) or the whole JK class (20 kids). Raina wanted to invite all of JK, plus some of her SK friends from extended day. That crew, plus some other friends, meant for a large guest list. It was time for an evite. Raina and I searched through the birthday options and she selected the penguins. (I think they were studying penguins at the time.) We sent out the evite and waited for responses.
Of course, not everyone RSVPed, so we had some wiggle-room in terms of how much cake and how many party favors we needed. We decided on a half-sheet of cake (about 50 servings) and 25 favors. I wanted to give a party favor that 1) wasn't plastic and immediately disposable and 2) would involve parents and child. In the end, we gave each child a packet of wildflower seeds and a set of children's garden gloves.
Fast-forward to party weekend. Friday night saw torrential downpours, lightning, and tornadoes. We devised a "how to cancel the party in case of rain" strategy. Saturday morning, weather.com assured us that the 2-4 p.m. range would be 80 degrees and sunny. Raina's party was a go!
Samantha and I headed out to the park, armed with squeegees and towels. We dried off the entire facility and waited for the sun to come out and take care of the rest. We returned home and packed up all of our plates and forks and 20+ identical cups we just happened to have. (Our environmental policy meant no disposable plates or utensils or cups.) After we finished packing up everything we needed, weather.com's report had changed. Now 2 p.m. would be sunny, and 3 p.m. would be rainy. New plan: play at the playground until it started raining, then eat cake in the pavilion and go home. Twenty minutes later, the report changed again: 2 - 4 p.m. would be rainy. At that point, 12:30 p.m., 1.5 hours away from the party's start, Eric, Samantha, and I hung our heads and crossed our fingers. At 1 p.m., the weather forecast changed again: sun until 4 p.m.
Of course, that's not what really happened. Samantha and I loaded up the car and went to get the cake from Schnucks. Even more panic set in when they couldn't find our cake. Eventually they did and we claimed the personally-designed-by-Raina cake. As we left the facility at 1:10 p.m., it started to rain. The amount of cursing from us was inappropriate but felt justified based on the stress of the day. (At noon, we also had the fire alarm go off at the house and had to deal with a smoky upstairs and the security company. Ugh.)
Samantha and I arrived at the playground, covered the pavilion's tables with tablecloths, set up the cake table, and took towels to the surfaces again. Raina continuously was upbeat; she even said "it's okay if it rains, Mommy, because the trees and flowers need water too!" I gave her a towel and sent her on slide patrol.
Two p.m. saw cloudy skies (but no rain), the first guests happily playing on the playground, and lots of relief from all adults involved. Shortly thereafter was total sun. The kids were frenetic: running, climbing, swinging, dancing, spinning, chasing. We had cake midway through. The kids were somewhat confused by real plates and forks, but seemed pleased with the milk, chocolate milk, or water drink options. (The Whomptons don't believe in soda.) Raina and I also had made dried apricots dipped in chocolate, and the adults ate them with abandon. We stacked all the dirty dishes and cups back together and sent the kids back to the playground.
Eric took lots of pictures -- at least one picture of each guest -- and tried to get a picture of Raina and each guest together. Our thank-you notes were emails to the kids (sent to the parents) and a whole collection of pictures of the child at the party.
In the end, Raina's 1st/5th birthday party had no rain, plenty of sunny skies and light breezes, lots of active kids and happy parents. It was creative, unique, environmentally friendly, and fun. We are thrilled at how successful it was.
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