It Takes a Village to Throw a Birthday Party

Evan's 6th Birthday Party : Country Fair theme

I bet you didn't know that I'm a recovering perfectionist under this disguise of a casual, cool-as-a-cucumber mom.  Who else do you know with a 3-page color coded spreadsheet for their child's 6th birthday party?  Yep.  This mom.  I have this horrible tendency to dream BIG and do everything on my own, from planning to logistics to execution instead of just breaking down and asking for help.  I go crazy, my family goes crazy, until we are all just a crazy bunch.  It's a viscous cycle.  So when it came to my youngest son Evan's 6th birthday party I did the unimaginable.  I asked for help.

There was once a time when I killed myself trying to be the perfect mom, employee, volunteer, friend, daughter, housekeeper and (my husband would suggest, occasionally) wife ... all at once.  Oh my, are those days over.  It is impossible to sustain any level of perfection for an extended period of time and I learned that lesson the hard way.  This became known as Taylor's Burn-out Phase, you may have been witness ... *boom*, *crash*, *burn*.  The reality is you can have it all, within reason.  There is one important rule: there has to be some give-and-take.  You can't work and volunteer for everything and juggle friends and be a good wife and be thoughtful toward your extended family and hey, be available to your children, to the level of (Om) perfection.  There just isn't enough time in the day.  *See my previous post, "Thursday: Never Enough Time in a Day to Shower".

So fast forward.  I get it.  Everyone needs help.  It takes a village.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  I know.  It just ... doesn't normally apply to my birthday parties.  

I absolutely love throwing birthday parties for my children.  Every year from preschool until their 8th birthday they have each received a themed birthday party.  By the time they turned eight my older boys were ready for the 24-hour birthday marathon which has continued into high school.  But that craziness is a whole different story.  This year I threw a Country Fair themed birthday party for Evan.  Fun stations for the guests with games and food and prizes.  I will take credit for the vision and organization, but I had a whole heck of a lot of help with the delivery.  

Every miniscule piece of control that I released by allowing someone else to take ownership over a portion of the party was a therapeutic step in the right direction.  If you are a recovering perfectionist, you can imagine how difficult it is to let someone else have an opinion or worse, control in regard to the vision of the party.  True, I still had my color-coded spreadsheet and my pencil-toting assistant (my 12 year old son Julian).  

But ...

• I trusted my mother with a glue gun to assemble the hanging signs for each table and even gave her free reign to create the 1st place ribbon decorations.  
• Two amazingly creative teenage friends ran the face painting table and produced beautiful pieces of painted art which I could never have done myself!
• I assigned my friend Stasi (a professional chef for <bleep> sake) to help prep food and assist my mother in decorating the three simple yet beautiful cakes. 
• My friend Jeremy organized the "Ring Toss" and "Knock Over the Can" games and stayed by their side the entire event.  
• Another friend Elyse (who doesn't even have a small child) volunteered to help kids decorate mini pumpkins.  And wow, do kids with paint need supervision.
• While we decorated, my sister Darion hand popped all of the popcorn while my older son's made fresh cotton candy and sno cones.  On a side note, I learned cotton candy twirling is an art in itself and I do not have the necessary coordination tools to make it happen.  
• I even trusted my husband Lewis with a finger-biting task ... the entire "Panning for Gold" station, from spray painting rocks and drilling holes in pie tins to hiding the gold in the sand.

The party was a hit!  It was a great day for my son.  I knew all of my family and friends were great, but seeing them all rally for Evan was a fantastic lesson for this recovering perfectionist.  It really did take a village to throw this 6th birthday party and I was grateful to have them!

Enjoy the pictures from Evan's Country Fair!

 Welcome to Evan's Country Fair!

 

Ring Toss Game

Evan playing Knock the Can Over

Panning for Gold in the sand box

Freshly popped popcorn for everyone

Mmmmmmm. Sno Cones.

Lovely homemade felt award ribbons

Lovely face painting for our guests

1st, 2nd and 3rd place cakes

Decorating Mini Pumpkins

No Country Fair is complete without corn dogs!

Meeting My Best Friends at Walk-a-thon, the End of an Era

This morning I am feeling that sad mix of emotions that nostalgia stirs.  I slept poorly last night because I reached that nasty point of being over-exhausted but still amped from too many diet coke's.  My legs were aching from alternating walking laps with my 6 year old and standing popping popcorn, selling food at concessions and running back and forth to the staff lounge to re-stock the bake sale.  All to benefit our elementary school Bubb's Walk-a-thon.  It was our family's 12th consecutive year.   

As I stood popping popcorn and juggled the needs of my three children: the oldest via text for marching band commitments, my middle feeling ridiculous as a volunteer sign holder (see pic below) and my youngest taking a break from walking laps to fill up on pizza, ice cream and popcorn, I started to get misty-eyed.  While my friend Joanne and her youngest son Owen helped me pop we reminisced about the love affair Owen has enjoyed with our trusty popcorn machine.  Since the time he was able to see over the table he has stood at our side at movie nights and school dances, watching the popcorn fill the machine while Jen and I tag-teamed the perfect combination of corn, oil and flavor-all ... scooping ... closing ... passing ... repeat.  This is Owen's last year at Bubb.  Where has the time gone?

All of my closest friends have either moved on from Bubb or will be leaving after this school year.  I still have four more Walk-a-thon's.  Our shoulder-to-shoulder work from planning to clean-up sealed our connection.  We have all loved this event that brought our husbands on to campus, our kids into the community for pledges and a purpose for our volunteering efforts.

I met one of my best friends Michelle at my first Walk-a-thon.  She was PTA President and running the show.  The following year we were inseparable.  We had an energy to get things done.  Our mission was to pull everyone into the school community and rid the school of the notion of have's-have not's.  I learned from her that everyone has a different level of giving and as a leader you should be grateful and embrace whatever that amount might yield.  I coordinated the Silent Auction for 9 years.  Bec was Walk-a-thon Chair.  Laura and Renelle handled food.  At the end of the night after the event was cleaned up, with our kids in a bake sale induced sleep, we noshed on chips and drank margarita's to decompress.  Today their children who were pushing for one last lap ... one more piece of pizza ... one more sno cone ... one more minute on the playground are in college.  Where has the time gone?

My friend Jen and I met when our oldest son's started kindergarten.  We were room mom's together with our friend Stacey (who is literally the nicest, most generous woman you will ever meet).  Jen was my PTA convention buddy in Sacramento, Long Beach and San Jose.  She knows PTA rules, regulations and core beliefs like the back of her hand and should be anyone's go-to for information, but she's not. Like me, she's old school.  Jen is also one of the few people in this world who has, and will back me unconditionally in every situation (she waits until we're in private to tell me I am being stupid), and taught me to be fiercely loyal to my friends.  With four kids, I thought she would be at Bubb forever.  Back in my Silent Auction heyday, they, along with our friend Elyse were my "Team".  This year the "Team" comprised of 30 people.  This is Jen's last year. Stacey and Elyse haven't been at Bubb for two years.  A new era has emerged.

As I started to empty cooler chests I thought about at all of these mom's who are moving on from Bubb, closing out their final Walk-a-thon: Jen, Joanne, Ruth, Jenny, Beth, Penny, Debbie, Susan.  Of this era, which is actually my second wave, I am the only one left.  I look around and I really don't know anyone.  It's a new crop of parents, a new time at Bubb.  I am the aging CEO in a room of shiny faced MBA grads.  I no longer fit.  There are no margarita's after the Walk-a-thon, I'm just ready for bed.

Suddenly I think about the popcorn machine and I am inspired.  I bought it when I was PTA President.  Back then we were both shiny and new.  Like me, it has seen a lot of events.  It has brought people happiness.  It has raised the school a lot of money.  It's that pain-in-the-ass at the end of the night that everyone has to deal with. I start to think, maybe, just maybe, I need a third wave at Bubb.  One last hurrah before our 16th and final Walk-a-thon.  And, just maybe, I want a new era of best friends.  Like everything else, only time will tell. 

Former Bubb students as walking advertisements

Carrying on the family popcorn tradition

Our friends the Pedroza's : popcorn and pizza entusiasts