Why isn't there a manual for how kid's birthday parties are supposed to work? What kind of gift is my son supposed to bring? Should I send him hungry, or having eaten already? Am I supposed to stay, or drop him off and leave? Since no one else has a manual (to my knowledge - if there actually is one and I've missed this fact someone PLEASE fill me in!) every parent is left to figure these things out and the answers seem to be different for every party. Whatever lessons I learned from the last party only partly apply to the next one.
I do not in any way want to knock the parents of the other kids in Liam's preschool who've had birthday parties for their kids and invited Liam. These have been parties that are planned with a clear understanding of the needs and desires of preschoolers. They have contained no hint of one upmanship, a reasonable amount of time and activities that leave my child satisfied, but not on the brink of throwing a screaming, rolling on the floor fit at the smallest disappointment. These are qualities I greatly appreciate in a birthday party.
And really, Liam seems to have no awareness of the possibility of mishandling a social situation. He just picks and wraps a gift and shows up ready to have fun. Right. Picks a gift. With a little help from Mom and Dad. A lot of help really. I believe that was on my original list of questions. I know what it's like to have an influx of new toys. Great for the kid, but where do they all go? Does this mean that as a parent I have to try to figure out what toys to get rid of? I think of this as I try to pick a present. Putting myself in the other parent's shoes. Also, what is the child interested in? What do they want?
These last questions can sort of be answered by Liam these days. For the party coming up this weekend he informed me that his friend likes Thor. A helpful preschool teacher also added Green Lantern to the list. So we headed to the big everything-for-cheap store with me very optimistic that this would be a quick trip and I would be able to make a stop at Hobby Lobby.
Good thing I did the birthday present part first. It turns out that the average consumer does not have the memory or attention (or obsessed interests) of a preschooler. Both Thor and Green Lantern have fallen from grace in the otherwise well-supplied super hero supplied section of the toy aisles. Ninja Turtles, Spider Man, Bat Man, Captain America, Transformers and professional wrestler figures for crying out loud, but no Thor or Green Lantern. The guy in the tech department turned out to be surprisingly knowledgeable on the topic and I was able to find a mangled slinger-thrower thingy in the clearance section that I was not about to send to a preschool birthday party.
Part way through this search I began to seriously contemplate grabbing the next bit of creatively shaped plastic that presented itself to my view and bolting. Unfortunately Liam had caught on to my well meaning intention of getting a thoughtful gift that his friend would like. He even began to plan how he would approach his friend and ask him what else he liked besides these two super heroes. Last chance: the book section. Score. Finally. Two books, a coloring book and two drinking cups. Hopefully the subject matter will make up for the fact that he is, in fact, getting books as a gift.
So this type of thing probably just points out that I'm taking my son's social life (and myself) a little too seriously. It's much more important that my OB appointment this morning went well, with all signs pointing to a healthy, growing baby and a reasonably healthy me. And after listening to a father in a radio interview describing his reaction to losing a child and dealing with injured family members in the recent attack in Boston I am able to be at least a little glad that I have the privileged of having this kind of petty frustration in my life. But these are the moments that make up our days, so there you have it.
Here, for your entertainment, is a picture from Liam's fourth birthday which we had the pleasure of celebrating with his cousins Ben and Ruth and my dear brother and sister-in-law. In future years a summer birthday may get complicated, but for now it's nice that we can spend it at the zoo and keep things very casual.
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