parisian party

I woke up this morning numb from the neck down. My eyes were burning, my head was pounding and there was a drone in my ears that sounded like a thousand angry locusts. I was beat up and bruised, but I was alive.

Yesterday was my son’s 6th birthday, and we had 9 (neuf, nueve, neun, 九) wild, sweaty, sticky, stinky little boys (and one little girl) at our place for a Dinosaur birthday party. And I made it out alive. And do you know HOW I made it back from the other side? Because I planned a well-run, well-thought out, well organized, yet FUN birthday party, that’s how. The pissy tone is due to my husband yapping at me all day yesterday about being so bossy. The thing is, when you’re staring down the barrel of a loaded .45 (i.e.: flying solo with a gaggle of sugared up kiddo’s in your home for 3 hours) SOMEONE’s got to be in charge.

Two things that you’ve got to know about planning a kids birthday party in France: 1) starting at an alarmingly young age (like, 2 years old- no joke) parents just drop their kids off at the door and scram. I learned that one the hard way: For my sons’ 2nd birthday, I had made all of these animal shaped sandwiches and mini-pizza’s for the “grown-ups” to snack on while we exchanged recipes and anecdotes about our ptt bout’choux. Instead, we’ve got video of me standing slack-jawed in the middle of the dining room with a platter in my hands and a bunch of whooping toddlers circling me like Comanches doing a war dance.

The second thing is that as far as theme-based birthday parties go in France, you’re pretty much stuck with clowns, pirates, Spiderman or Dora the Explorer. A few stores have started carrying some other themes, but it’s still pretty slim pickins. So that means that once a year when we go back to the US, I have to plan and buy for a years’ worth of birthdays if the kids want to have an interesting party (Now, if this were my husbands blog, he would jump in at this point and talk about how children have had fun and interesting birthday parties for centuries before The Marketing Machine (or The Man, or The Media- pick one) started selling us on the idea that we have to BUY coordinated themes in order for a child’s birthday party to be enjoyable. But this ISN’T my husbands blog, so I say, “Nyah-nyah-nyah. Nyah nyah nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah nyah!” to that). All of this to say that I’ve been thinking- even if just a teensy bit, about this party since June…

So, with the two aforementioned issues, PLUS the fact that I suffer so deeply from Working Mother’s Guilt that I stayed up until 2:30AM making a birthday cake shaped like a baby dinosaur hatching out of an egg (my kids aim high- what can I say?), I think all of this warrants me getting to be the boss of the party (dare I mention that I’m also a PARTY PLANNER by profession, or should I not go there…?). I’m not ashamed to admit it- with my, um…guidance, the games were played safely and fairly, the snacks were eaten crumblessly on coordinating plates and napkins, the gifts were opened in an orderly fashion and Joyeaux Anniversaire was sung perfectly in 3-part harmony. And in the midst of all of this organized chaos, the only thing that I remember is my son shouting out that it was the best birthday that he’s ever had. So go ahead and chide me and mock me and call me Monica Geller if you want to- I threw a kickin’ DinoParty and I lived to blog about it. Cue Beyoncé: I’m a SURVIVOR, I’m gonna MAKE IT, I’m a SURVIVOR, keep on SURVIVIN’….