12 Jun Birthday Party Mayhem: How We Survived Our Son’s First Big Bash
It was a close-run thing, but his son’s fifth-birthday party ended up being a treasured event, writes Daniel Prokop.
The Pressure of the First Real Party
When my wife, Beth, and I celebrated five years of being parents, we received the official thumbs up from our son, Sam, at his party. In the words of one of the children, “I wish we could come to your birthday party every day, Sam”. Yeah, right.
We had quite a few magic moments on the day. When Sam woke up, we said, “Happy birthday, our five-year-old!” Sam looked down at his body and asked, “Am I five now?” “Yes!” we said. “But I’m not any bigger,” he replied. I’m not quite sure if he expected to wake up with a goatee and moustache, but I guess he’d kind of figured that at that magic age of five, bingo – you’re grown up.
Party Planning and the Snack-Time Strategy
Party time approached, and as children’s-birthday-party virgins, Beth and I both felt the pressure to perform. We knew the jury would be sympathetic, but we also knew that our jury consisted of a gaggle of kindergarten-hardened five-year-old boys. A social gaffe now, and we could add another zero to Sam’s future therapy bills.
We had done our homework, and we knew that salted snacks and sugar would be our friends on this day. Our task was to use the substances in such a cunning way that we would get the social goodwill from the dispensing of the confectionery, while ensuring that the big sugar hit and the associated behavioural challenges kicked in only after the children had left our premises. This meant, of course, that our timing had to be spot on.
Dodgem Cars Disaster and the Sugar Dilemma
At the pre-party planning session, we synchronised watches and went through the agenda one last time. A final mad dash to put up balloons and streamers, and it was show time—the video was rolling.
We stretched the time we had allocated to meet, greet and commence general trashing to 15 minutes. Salted snacks were dispensed; sugar was kept carefully in reserve.
We had conferred with a number of consultants, who all agreed that 20 to 25 minutes for the cardboard dodgem cars (cardboard boxes with holes cut in the middle and cloth shoulder straps) was a conservative estimate. We lined up the drivers and blew the whistle: “Cars on!” It was then that disaster struck in a most heinous way. The pre-car shoe check had been forgotten. With a yard full of bindies (and no time allocated to bindy surgery), we had no choice but to send out a shoe-recovery mission. By the time all of the sandals had found feet, it was obvious to us that we had lost momentum. The whistle, the whip and the orange-cardboard witches’ hats could not keep the dodgems going for more than five minutes.
Pass the Parcel Panic
This was a major setback, for which we were not prepared. In the hurried crisis meeting that followed, we were close to panic. “Bring out the sugar.” “No, it’s too early. They’ll become hyper on us. The whole house could go up.” “Okay. Bring forward Pass The Parcel.”
Our eyes met meaningfully; we knew we were taking a reckless gamble. If we had any more setbacks, we were facing the ugly prospect of 20 minutes or more at the end of the party without a major distraction. This was dangerous stuff. We rolled the dice and prayed.
Beth was the parcel mistress, and she knew she was on her own. If things got out of hand, I would be too far away to help, for my mission was to hide the ‘treasure’ in the backyard for our coup de grace, ‘The Treasure Hunt’. My mission complete, I slipped back inside the house and sensed immediately that something had gone dreadfully wrong. “Okay, Daniel will do this last one, and he won’t look so keep passing the parcel. Remember: just keep passing the parcel!” Pass the Parcel had degenerated into anarchy. Some of the children had quickly worked out that passing the parcel was, in fact, a losing strategy.
Saving the Day with a Pirate Treasure Hunt
Strike two. We released the sugar demon. We were on the razor’s edge; only a successful Treasure Hunt could deliver us.
The Treasure Hunt briefing with the children went well: they were excited. Face paint and bandannas made us all look like pirates. Then we were off again downstairs – and this time we had done the shoe check. The children had to work out where each piece of the treasure was hidden using clues that a dying pirate had put on a treasure map for me. I drew each clue on a blackboard and was relying on my ‘shipmates’ to decipher the clue, find the treasure and bring it back to the treasure chest. They loved the game, and there was much rejoicing. After finding all the treasure, they each selected one treasure from the chest and unwrapped it. There was even more rejoicing. From that point on, we had them in the palm of our hands.
A Sweet Finish and One Big Wish
The cake-cutting ceremony went without a hitch, although my suspicion that Sam didn’t actually make a wish before he blew out the candle was borne out later. As I was tucking him into bed, I reassured him, “Look, I’m sure they cut a little slack for five-year-olds at their first big party. As long as the candle was still smoking when you made the wish, that wish is a given.”
So the party was a huge success. It even went over time. The question is: what will we do for the next one?
Illustrations by Ron Monnier
