The Birthday Party That Wasn't Supposed To Be

Lucas has had a birthday party every year of his life. I'm big on birthdays, and see it also as a bit of an anniversary that we survived another year of parenthood. But I'll be honest, I'm a little burnt out on them. Between the hand made brain lollipops and matching brain cake for the 6 YO science party and the 3 YO Alice in Wonderland tea party extravaganza, my party-sanity has been spent. Drained. Done. So I made a proclamation - 4 and 8 were NON-BIRTHDAY PARTY YEARS. 

It worked with Zoe. I just took her and her BFF to the American Girl store in LA for lunch. She got a doll and was thrilled. Easy peasy. But that is not the case with the boy. He's more like me than he knows... and he wanted to have a party. I gave him choices like Disneyland, a weekend in Palm Springs, a Laker game or even his own computer. Nope. He wanted a party. 

I started to look around. What is a cool party for 8 year old boys? We are at the drop off stage, which freaked me out last year at the Rugby park party when parents left their kids with us and some tacking dummies for 3 hours mid-day. So it has to be easy, secure, be able to have about 20 kids and not cost an arm and a leg. That leaves us with.... nothing. 

So I talked the kid into a smaller, "family" party at home. Our close family friends and their kids. We'll have dinner and the kids can play video games. Lucas wasn't really sold, but solemnly agreed. Yea. I was WORKED OVER by an (almost) 8 year old. He knows me. He's knows my style and how I roll. More importantly, he KNOWS that Mom doesn't do small, nothing parties. And he is so correct. 

This small party is now being dubbed "Club A.V.A.N.T."

We are transforming the dining room into a dance club complete with a DJ (friends of ours with a set up), strobe light and disco ball. Lucas has decided that he wants his friends to do a "rap off" and he even has an outfit change slated. The other day he asked if we could also get a taco truck and a chocolate fountain.

I told him that he's watching entirely too much Disney XD. 

Check back for post-mortem madness and pictures next week.