Exiting the kiddo birthday party arms race

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This was the year.

Since dd was on the cusp of 3yo, we’ve been attending kiddo birthday parties that made everything I grew up with pale by comparison. Honestly, I don’t remember my friends having big birthday parties when I was a kid…although, to be fair, I primarily was close just with my bff and didn’t really get the time of day from the “cool kids” that treated me like crap. (Back then, it wasn’t cool at all to be the smart-but-short-fat-girl-with-glasses; these days, I’d be the subject of my own YA book series with an option for a 3-movie deal.)

When we attended the first of these new-fangled kiddo parties, at a mini gym, we were immediately taken with the notion of having someone else be responsible for corralling, entertaining, and then cleaning up after a classroom of kiddos. It seemed like a fantastic idea. Well, that is until we saw the price of these parties.

In most cases, it was something on the order of $300+ just for the location and the staff; then you had to add in the cost of the cake (typically store-bought, for simplicity’s sake), pizza (if it was near a mealtime), drinks, and favors. In some cases, the starting price is even higher (especially for the indoor bouncy place near us), in which case the final tally for a party would be anywhere from $400-500. For a party. For pre-schoolers.

We knew this couldn’t last.

Last year, for dd’s 6th birthday party, we did a gymnastics party at our local YMCA. The limit on kids was something like 27 or 29, including dd (it was all based on ratios of coaches:kids), and we invited her entire Kindergarten class plus a small group of neighborhood kiddos and close friends. The idea was that we would wait to see who from her class just blew it off and then we’d add in the remainder of kids we also wanted to invite. Trouble was, nobody backed out. We had 100% YES RSVPs. It was shocking, to say the least. The YMCA team, much to their credit, rallied and managed to handle the large crowd in style – especially at improvising additional games/activities when some aspects of the party took less time than anticipated. I think we all just found the party overwhelming, and then after doing a twist on the invitation game with ds’ 4th birthday party this summer (starting with the list of neighborhood kids and close friends FIRST and then inviting only select kids from day care), we just felt like we were overspending and overthinking it all.

In our neck of the woods, there are plenty of kiddo party options (outside of the house). You can be active (YMCA, indoor bouncy / gym / playarea, karate, gymnastics, etc.), you can be crafty (Joanns, Michaels, paint-your-own pottery, etc.), you can be educational (such as kid-oriented museums), and you can be outdoorsy (hayride with pumpkin picking, hiking at the nearby Audubon or state park, etc.). The options become completely overwhelming, and the cost isn’t far behind. Even the party favors end up stressing me out: let’s see if we can spend less than $100 on gifts for up to 30 kids and not make it all plastic junk toys or candy. My go-to favor solution has mostly been some kind of notebook, notepad or coloring {thing}, along with some kind of writing/drawing implement (markers, crayons, or pencils) and some form of innocuous kid-oriented food {thing}, such as Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. Buying the writing/drawing stuff from the local Job Lot or Target and the Goldfish from BJs, we typically manage to keep the price on the favors within budget…but it’s all still crazy.

So, this is the year that I pulled the brakes – to a certain extent. I didn’t say that dd couldn’t have a birthday party; I figured we needed to get her on a step-down program. What we’re doing instead is a targeted party at a local Build-a-Bear for just a very select crew. I can’t adequately describe how awful I feel at not being able to invite all of the neighborhood kids, but it’s just cost-prohibitive. For this party, we’re keeping it to just 8 kids, including dd and ds, so she had 6 invitation slots she could fill. That. Was. It.

I figured we could skip the expense of the favor (each kid is going home with a stuffy they made themselves, so I am comfortable with saying THAT is their “favor”), and I let dd pick out a scaled-down cupcake cake that should result in no leftovers and be relatively easy to wrangle in the mall food court, as we take over a table for the food portion of the party after the bears (and other assorted stuffies) have been built.

There’s a part of me that is incredibly happy to say goodbye to the era of the big party for dd; aside from the expense, the stress of trying to figure out how to maximize the experience for a large number and variety of kids is exhausting. Even dealing with the thank you cards is just some new level of insanity; my hat is totally off to the parents of ds’ preschool classmate, who put thank you cards in each favor bag. KUDOS on getting that out of the way, man.

I don’t know how this party will go. It’s tomorrow, and both kids have been stoked to go build some bears. The other kiddos invited to the party have also been jumping up and down at the thought of going, so I’m hoping this doesn’t turn out to be some kind of build-up for not much actual return for them. I just want everyone to have a good time and for it not to break the bank. A part of me also wants dd (and ds) to have the parties I just don’t remember having or going to when I was that age, even though I sincerely doubt that withholding such parties will end up severely adding to their future therapy bills.

It’s just that fine line – balancing the needs of the few (dd & ds) with the needs of the many (all the other kids) and the needs of the one (checking account). Something had to give…and we drew the line in first grade. If this works out fine, ds has only 1-2 more years of “the big party” and then he’ll start his own party step-down program. It may seem crazy to think about it this way, but did I ever mention that I’m an overthinker? Yeah…in spades.

20 books & 20 lbs (week 43): It’s all ups and downs, isn’t it?

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You win some, you lose some…that’s how the saying goes. I think, in that context, it’s supposed to refer to the idea that you can’t win all of your battles. Of course, with weight loss, winning is losing and vice versa, and so while I was happy to report that I’d lost a pound last week, I get to report that I gained it back this week. What the…?

Weight loss is so genuinely frustrating. If you don’t have the time, energy, or sheer mass of willpower to devote all of your time and energy to it, you just can’t seem to make the progress you want. I’m not as bad off as I was nine months ago, but I still feel like only drastic action will get me the other 10lbs down…and drastic is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Drastic is where “things that I can’t do repeatedly and forever” comes in. Drastic is “you can’t have, even when you want to” and that’s also a problem.

Now, sure, I’ve had to take drastic action before: for example, I don’t drink (highly) caffeinated drinks anymore. About 10 years ago, I stopped drinking caffeinated sodas and switched to decaf coffee & tea because my gastrointerologist suggested that might help me with my (ever-increasing) stomach troubles. Turns out he was right: dehydration is a trigger, and caffeine is definitely a trigger. And yes, there is some amount of caffeine in decaf coffee, but it doesn’t set me off, so I still drink THAT.

That was a big switch for me, and it’s also a lot of why I primarily drink water if I’m not having coffee or tea; at least that I know I can get without caffeine hidden in it (I’m looking at YOU, Orange Sodas and Root Beers!).

But that was taken for a specific symptom abatement: please make me stop being so violently ill that I’m incapacitated for several days every week. And it worked. Frankly, it’s also in the category of “drastic but totally manageable” since it didn’t require me to change how I spent my time, just what I picked to drink. It didn’t necessitate spending at least an hour in caffeine-detox every day, the way committing myself to a serious workout plan might.

So, the struggle continues. And yes, I know some of it is a matter of willpower. I could have not had that second margarita last night. COULD HAVE. But since I have about 1 alcoholic drink per month, these days, I figure that having two in one night probably holds me well enough until we get to Christmas.

Book #16: “Let the Sky Fall” by Shannon Messenger

It’s a funny thing, when you go to a movie theater and walk out with a book. That’s happened to me only a couple of times, where the movie theater had promo copies of books (recently released, is my guess, not advances) and they put them out for patrons to take on their way into whichever show they happen to be seeing. The first time that happened, we were going to see “The Three Musketeers” and I picked up some GOD-AWFUL HARRY POTTER KNOCKOFF that I just couldn’t even bother with after about 30 pages of me saying, “THIS IS A GOD-AWFUL HARRY POTTER KNOCKOFF” and exiling it to a shelf in the library to go into some nebulous “giveaway” pile that doesn’t yet exist.

So this was a bit different.

We were headed in to see “RED 2” and there was a book. On the counter. Just waiting to be picked up.

Putting aside my PTSD from having gotten such an awful book last time, I picked up “Let The Sky Fall”, a Young Adult fiction piece that seemed supernatural and potentially quite girly. The good news is that it IS supernatural but it ISN’T girly. In fact, Messenger – alternating chapters from the points of view of the two main characters – works very hard to make it NOT girly.

The book centers on Vane Weston, a teenager who managed to survive an EF-5 tornado that killed his parents and knocked out all of his childhood memories. He’s haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl that he later discovers is Audra, a “windwalker” – a sylph who can control wind, a girl who has been with him since just before that fateful day that robbed him of his parents. She explains to him that there’s a battle among the windwalkers and that she’s his guardian, sworn to protect him even if it means sacrificing her own life, and that there is another band of windwalkers that want to control him because he holds the secret to commanding the fourth wind – the westerly winds.

Of course, Vane being the average teen boy, thinks this is all fairly insane…but he manages to listen to her long enough to understand the truth in her message, and he devotes himself to learning what he can so that he can save both of them. He also tries to unlock the mystery of his past, which is tied up in secrets Audra holds clamped down as tightly as the regulation guardian braid she uses to corral her hair.

By alternating her storytelling between Audra and Vane, you get a much better sense of each character’s motivation and sensation. Naturally, there’s some measure of girliness involved – anything relating to how Audra and Vane feel about each other triggers my inner 14-year-old’s hormones – but not enough that you feel that it takes over the book. Within the first 100 pages (my threshold for pain), the book had me hooked. By the time I made it over the crest towards the end of the 400 page tome, I was staying up late to finish it. And any girliness about Vane/Audra is counteracted by both of them being tough as nails; Audra is no fading flower and her inner (and outer) strength make it clear this girl has some serious power.

Messenger ended the book by setting up for the next (“Let the Storm Break”, due out in March), and I’m curious to see what she puts into it. I’ll certainly keep an eye out for it, since this seems very much to be a series worth picking up, not just for me but also for my kids when they get old enough to handle YA. Her writing style and focus draws characters more in the vein of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson than Bella Swan, without necessarily alienating the young female set, so I think Messenger does a very good job of walking a very fine line. I’m glad I read “Let the Sky Fall”, and now I’m looking forward to March to see where she takes Vane and Audra next…

20 books & 20 lbs (week 42): Winning and losing, continued

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Just when I expected to deal with the consequences of an “eat all the things” week (or two), I end up losing weight two weeks in a row. I’m teetering on the edge…just a half-pound north of finally passing the 10lb weight loss mark. My pants have been looser, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s nice feeling plenty of wiggle room, but it’s also driving me to wear belts – which I loathe.

I also found it extremely strange that the pants I tried on at Kohls (and then bought!) ended up being wicked loose when I took them off the hanger and wore them to work. I’m starting to think that my “one size down” purchase was based on a vanity size. It seems unthinkable that I would’ve dropped a whole two sizes already.

In other words, a goal not yet met is already meeting with some measure of success in the pants/waistline area, where I’m finding the need to tighten my belt…literally!

I’ll keep at it for the remainder of the year and see what happens. Since I’ve been doing very little (or, shall we say, nothing?) lately in the way of real exercise, that’s probably the best place to start. Of course, it’s also one of the hardest, since it requires sacrificing time with the family or with my head on my pillow. Sigh. Work to do, work to do.

Book 15: “The Ginseng Hunter” by Jeff Talarigo

I can’t quite recall how I stumbled across this book. It might’ve been one of the free books left out at the end of summer camp, where boxes upon boxes of remainders and discards were tantalizingly close to the parking space, tempting me just to toss an entire box into my car’s trunk.

This book is a view into a world I can’t even imagine seeing otherwise, the simultaneously simple and complex life of a Chinese ginseng “hunter” who lives on the border between China and North Korea. The unnamed protagonist and his North Korean paramour, an escapee who’s trapped in a life of prostitution, alternate telling the stories of their existence.

His life is about the delicate responsibility of finding and harvesting the precious ginseng roots that provide him his primary source of income, while living in an uneasy alliance with the soldiers who man the border. Her life is one of incredible misfortune – the intense deprivation of life in North Korea, combined with the horrific frustration at her inability to protect her young daughter from the harshness of their reality.

The two stories blend together so seamlessly that you catch your breath at times, realizing that it’s very likely that what he sees is intersecting with the story she is telling…and ultimately there’s no joy in the gray, pragmatic, exploitative world Talarigo describes. There’s clearly beauty, such as in the perfection of a ginseng root carefully extracted so as to garner maximum sale value. But the majority of Talarigo’s tale is about the sadness of the inescapability of it all. No one seems to enjoy their life, and what we might consider the simple pleasures are as exquisite as the greatest extravagance in the West.

“The Ginseng Hunter” is a beautifully drawn tale of sadness and things that never could have been, and I’m terrifically glad it was short. Like the bitterness or bite of a root, sometimes having only the briefest taste is the best possible way to enjoy it.