And so to my final guest post for the week from Major Love of Film who contemplates the huge effort she made for her daughter’s 6th birthday party and whether it was all worth it?
There are many things in motherhood that require that extra ounce of effort; caring for a sick child, getting to school on time in the rain and dealing with tantrums being just three. But far and away the biggest expenditure of my energy through the year is allocated to The Birthday Party.
Rachel starts thinking about her party in April, for her birthday in August. She starts talking about different ideas and tries to figure out if she can have 100 at build a bear. 🙂 By May she has the date, theme, venue, running order and guest list in place and then….. it’s over to me.
This year she wanted to have her party before school broke up for the summer holidays which dramatically shortened the preparation time, but hey I can cope. She picked a High School Musical Party at the church hall with me running it! And that’s what she got.
The invites went out
The decorations were bought
The party bag fillings bought and made, the games chosen and prepared, the food planned and the music selected. The cake slaved over for 3 hours.
Then at 5pm yesterday the party started. Friends arrived, balloons were played with, the music started and we were off. For an hour I played music, ran games, judged dancing contests, refereed boisterousness and tried to make sure everyone had a good time. I am no party entertainer but I had my plan (essential) and great friends on hand to help me pull it off.
After an hour the pizzas arrived and the kids ate hungrily before diving into choc ices. Before we went back to the games the cake was brought out and the candles blown out.
Then it was more games and before I knew it the parents were back and it was time to clear up and go.
Rachel had a ball
“best birthday party ever mummy, can you do next years?”
Her friends had fun, the cake was a success and no one got hurt, I’d say that makes it a success.
So was it worth every ounce if effort?
Absolutely!
It’ll take me a month to recover but it was completely worth it.
And no, I’m not tempted to get someone in to run her next party, or go somewhere to host it. Whilst she wants me to run her party, I’m right there.
I throw myself into Rachel’s birthday parties with wild abandon. It is a celebration of everything she is; and she is everything!
This post completes the birthday party planning series on Major Love of Film that started all those months ago with the introduction at http://majorloveoffilm.blogspot.com/2011/06/birthday-party-planning-introduction.html