Nicholas had his very first birthday party today and, per the custom at his school, we invited all of his school friends. And it was chaos. Luckily only 10 of the 21 were there or I don't know how we would have managed (seriously, how do the teachers not only manage every day but keep them so calm and organized all the time?). He had a lot of fun and it was an overall success, but it was loud and a little wild and overwhelming. We will not be doing this often, I can promise.
Now, some of the chaos was our own fault. The facility provides water, punch, and lemonade for the kids, but I hate when we go to parties and they serve punch because Nicholas goes crazy when he has it, so I had put enough of the boxes of milk we pack him for school in the fridge that the kids could all have milk instead. And I planned to ask the facility to not even put out the punch and lemonade, only offering water and milk. But when the kids lined up to get their clubs the woman told them to tell her whether they wanted water, punch, or lemonade to drink, Joe and I looked at each other and suddenly realized that we'd left the milk at home in the fridge. And then the ice cream cake was so frozen that it took a long time to cut and so some of the kids spent close to 10 minutes sitting just drinking punch. So of course after they were done with their cake they were literally running around in circles and no amount of effort on my part to corral them into a game or anything calmer worked. Joe finally had them line up and march in a parade (they all had those party favors where they blow the paper strip) out to the lobby as a way to signal to the parents that the party was over and it was time to go.
But before that things went really well. The kids were all loud and hyper and a little manic, but within reason and mostly able to listen. As they waited for the others to show up they played on the toys in the lobby, although we refused to give them money to make them move.
I just love watching how well they all get along.
They would all pile on to the car and then count how many kids there were and talk about the number of clowns in the clown car (they did a circus unit a few weeks ago).
They then played mini golf and thankfully we had the whole place to ourselves (booking the party for as soon as it opened worked beautifully) because they were basically taking up the entire place. And they played so quickly (because they were moving through one or two kids on a hole at a time and so not waiting for everyone to finish any hole) that when we got back to the lobby the woman at the counter looked a little panicked (the cake wasn't ready) and so suggested they go play another round. So they played 36 holes of golf (well "played," with some following more rules than others) in under an hour. And Nicholas was so excited and wound up, his voice was an octave higher than usual. But he still mostly played by the rules and had fun.
Nicholas had a great time, but man did it wear us down. Another week of birthday fun awaits.
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