And Then the Other Won’t Shut Up

~ Laura

We drove through the old, winding streets of Northern New Jersey to yet another 6-year old birthday party for a friend of Jonah’s. Ian slept in the backseat. Jonah practiced cool-speak for the party.

“Mom, that train is AWE-some. That train IS awesome. That TRAIN is awesome. Hey, Dad! Cool.”

The train was nice and all, but didn’t really deserve the description of awesome. Jonah was gearing himself up for proving himself with his peers. “Cool” and “awesome” were repeated many times on that 15 minute drive, but surprisingly he held himself back from the potty-speak.

We’ve been getting a lot of fart, poop, butt, weener, hiney, buttcrack, pee-head lately. Sometimes I’m quite sure that he has Tourettes. Before a burp erupts, he must announce it and then attempt to amplify it. (Kick to husband who laughs.) We even got a note home from his teacher who was shocked about a creative combination of words that came out of his mouth last week. The boy likes to get a laugh.

The trouble is that I’m starting to talk like that as well. The other day, Steve asked, “Where’s my book on the Revolution?”. Without pausing, I answered, “In your butt.” I need a job.

The party was at a video arcade. 20 boys were given the run of the arcade. They batted hockey pucks around, whacked moles, and blasted away virtual soldiers with AK47s. I’m quite certain that several of those boys will be doing hard time in about 10 years.

The mother thoughtfully gave the adrenline-pumped boys soda and ice-cream cake. And a goodie bag with matches and a pack of smokes.

We had another birthday party today, which is just insane. This one was at a sports club where 30 kids did gymnastics and had more pizza and cake. Our boy has a better social life than we do. We’re going to start to decline some of these invites, not only because I’m not all that thrilled that my kid is blowing away virtual soldiers, but because we need some quiet.

Published by Laura

7 thoughts on “And Then the Other Won’t Shut Up”

  1. We decline lots of invites. Now that we have two that get invited everywhere, there’s just no time. So we go to the ones we really want to go to. I hear ya on the doing hard time thing.

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  3. I just don’t understand when it was decided that birthday parties need to be held someplace loaded with outlandish entertainment options. Well, ok, I can understand it, interpret it sociologically or economically or culturally, but I still don’t get it. Birthday party at the hockey rink! The roller skating rink! The video arcade! The sports club! Good grief, what hath Chuck E. Cheese wrought?
    We let our girls go to many of these parties, because their friends are there and we don’t want them to feel left out. But they’ve always had their own birthday parties at home, or at most at a nearby park. We bake cupcakes, we play some games, roast hot dogs and marshmellows, whatever: all that old-time stuff. And we limit invites; preferably no more than a half-dozen guests. Much more than that, and you have to throw the party elsewhere, which I suppose is part of the problem. Seems to have worked for us so far. Can we get away with this solely because we only have daughters? I wonder.

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  4. We have those parties. I’m guilty.
    I was a summer birthday – all of my parties (the few of them that actually involved inviting friends) were outdoors in the yard or park. I always envied the kids who could have cupcakes at school.
    My daughter is a Dec. 26 kid. I can’t do a cupcake thing at school for her, not really. And not only is the park out of the question in our climate, but we have to have it two weeks early to get any turnout at all. I invite the whole class (1st grade – it’s the right thing to do…they are all too sensitive and too uninvolved in cliques), get maybe a handful of attendees.
    Why have we hit the pizza joint (not Chuck E. Cheese. that place gives me a nervous tic), the gymnastics facility, the bowling alley? I don’t want upwards of 20 kids (possible) in my house. I don’t. I have an upstairs bathroom and can picture kids rolling down the stairs on their heads. I have cats (allergy central), very small 100-year-old house rooms and too much furniture crammed in them for that many (even half that many) kids to have room to rumpus. I don’t want to clean up before or after. I work full time, I’m not June Cleaver, and I’m certain I’m not clever enough to figure out how to entertain them all for an hour to an hour and a half…I’ve read books in her classroom before, I know who I’m dealing with here.
    I do look forward to her getting a little older and being able to have a cozy 3-girl sleepover, believe me…but that’s probably not until 3rd grade. She’s a special needs kid who will undoubtedly be alienated by her peers at some point – it’s that small-primate thing..for every alpha there needs to be a omega – so I won’t alienate anyone in her class until the point when factions are arranged and we need a different plan of operation.

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  5. This party deal has gotten out of hand. When S1 (born 1978) was in grade school, the parties were simple and so were the gifts. By the time D1 arrived (1988) I started leading a Birthday Simplification Movement (relatively easy since the kids went to a religious school — values first). Features: $$ limit on gifts (or three or four families clubbing together for one gift) simpler activities things like that.
    D1’s birthday is also December — we’ve made holiday ornaments & we have also celebrated her “anti birthday” in June.
    Things evolve. In K-3, the school rule was to have either all the kids in the class, or all the same-sex kids in the class. By 4th grade, they had the social awareness to be selective.
    Sometimes the moms club together, and there’ll be a group birthday, say all the birthdays in February have a skating party at the roller rink.
    You can also set a gift budget for the year with the kids. It’s a good way to teach budgeting skills.

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  6. The new Fairfield county take on the over the top parties to to have multiple parties on the same day. Multiple parties you say? Yes. They have some kids over for the birthday and other kids are asked to sleep over in addition. Kind of like having a dinner party before a cocktail party: who doesn;t feel left out when not gettign invited to the dinner party?

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