RSVP. Try it, You'll Like It.

Adam turned five last week. FIVE. Who remembers when Jacob turned five and Adam was still a teeny baby?

FIVE? That's so hard for me to swallow. FIVE. Big kids turn five. How did my baby become a big kid so quickly? *sigh*

I should really write a fifth birthday post about Adam especially since I found his fourth birthday post completely blank in my draft file, but eh, I'll talk about his party.

His Ch*ck E Ch**se birthday party.





Adam has wanted a Ch*ck E Ch**se party since he knew what birthday parties were. Since Jacob got a fancy party at five, we decided Adam could choose a fancy party at five too, so we've pretty much had this party planned since the day AFTER he turned four last year.

Anyway. When preschool classes resumed after Christmas I sent Adam in with fifteen little Batm*n party invitations to place in every one of his classmate's little cubbies where his teacher so lovingly placed in each little folder before placing that in each little backpack. In addition to the date, time, and place of the party I also requested an RSVP by a certain date complete with two contact numbers and an email address for those people who feel awkward talking to a stranger over the phone. Never mind that we've all met at least three previous times, but you know, whatever.

When the invitation deadline came, I'd received one regret.

Seriously? I spent about half the day panicking wondering what would happen to my sweet baby if NO ONE showed up to celebrate his big day and then I remembered I've done this before. What has happened common courtesy and manners? Aren't we in the south here? Aah....don't get me started on the thank you card.

I waited a couple more days and got two acceptances and then contacted the mouse house and lowered my number to the minimum amount, eight, even though I only had six for sure. It was stressful, the wondering, but I had to let it go. I knew we'd have a good party no matter how many kids showed up so I just decided to be done with it.

Then on the day of the party a babysitter found me in the pick-up line half hour before and told me she'd be bringing two kids which, GREAT!, now I have my eight.

So, we get to Ch*ck E Ch**se and meet with our party hostess who sets everything up, plates, cups, tokens, pizza, for EIGHT children. Then suddenly we had TWELVE children. Twelve guests and eight token cups. Obviously the party hostess has dealt with this before because she was quick to bring out more plates and cups and utensils, but it did take her a while to get the tokens ready. The babysitter and her two charges was the last to show up and immediately demanded tokens to which I told her the hostess would be over soon with them. She wasn't happy about waiting so I gave her a handful of the 100 I bought myself and told her I'd see about the hold up. Apparently I wasn't quick enough. When I returned with the extra tokens, I found her grabbing the rest of my tokens right out of my bag. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I shouldn't have left my bag sitting there unattended but, well, we were the only people in that place so you figure you can trust your own party guests. I guess you can't.

If it weren't my kid's birthday party I would've made more of a scene than the, oh-no-someone-took-our-tokens-sorry-you-used-your-tokens-little-boy-there-aren't-anymore routine while asking my husband quite loudly in front of the thief if we could afford to buy more. Amazing, but none of that phased her.

FYI: Iif you have eight kids, you get two pizzas. If you have twelve kids, you get five pizzas. That would've been nice to know before I ordered the two extra pizzas back when we only had eight kids.

And guess who forgot her coupons??

So the party ended up costing me fifty dollars in pizza we ate three meals a day for the next three days. It was worth it, though, to finally make my five year old baby's birthday dream come true.



Next: Adam at Five

And then Later: Birthday Party Etiquette...How to Answer an RSVP, Write a Thank You Note, and If it's in someone's bag, it doesn't belong to you.