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!