Matthew's Birthday Party
Matthew’s fourth birthday is coming up on Monday. But that’s the first day of his school’s Passover Break and many of his classmates will be out of town. Birthday parties are important at this age, so we scheduled for this past Sunday instead.
We reserved the local park, which means I got a permit to host an event there and to site a rented bounce house near the pavilion. It’s the exact same party I hosted last year, just with a bigger bounce house. The difference is that I know better what to expect and what to do to make it run more smoothly.
I am a planner. There are spreadsheets and Evernote notes and electronic invitations. How should this go? What timing should we have? You have to figure it all out. So what does that mean?
What I Planned
At this age, the food is snacks, water, juice boxes, pizza, and cake. The kids eat regular cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza—you can forget margherita or Hawaiian (my favorite!) or sausage or barbecue chicken. Since most of the kids come from observant Jewish homes, non-pork options are best.
The general schedule for the day is this:
10:30: Arrive at the park. Snacks, water, juice, and bounce house should be available.
11:30: Pizza is available for those who want it.
12:00: Cake + Happy Birthday song then more playtime
12:30: Start cleaning up.
The permit is from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM, including time for setup and cleanup. It’s not difficult but it is time-consuming.
Pizza is tricky. Ordinarily I would pick up pizza from Costco, but that requires me to actually go get it on the day of the event. I’m happy to do that, but I also have other items to get and it just doesn’t work out. It makes more sense to order the pizza from the local pizzeria and have it delivered. While they have an online ordering system, I prefer to talk to the manager in person. He was personable but he looked like he never sleeps or eats. I idly wondered if he has an addiction (meth? heroin? tequila?). I paid for eight pizzas (three pepperoni, three cheese, one margherita, one Hawaiian) to be delivered to the neighborhood park located one-half mile from his store. I specifically gave the street address and directions to the main pavilion.
Next to the pizzeria is a local bakery that sells bundt cakes. I ordered three dozen cupcake-sized bundt cakes and hoped it was enough. The flavors were chocolate, confetti (vaguely vanilla), and one-third are vanilla. They were more expensive than a sheet cake, but infinitely easier to serve.
I went to various stores to get water, juice boxes, snacks, and so on.
I used the online ordering system from Einstein Bagels for coffee, bagels, and cream cheese to be delivered by 10:30. The adults also need love!
How It Went
When I went to bed on Saturday night, 51 people had RSVP’d. When I awoke on Sunday morning, 65 had RSVP’d. But no pressure.
The bounce house rental people had told me to meet them at the park at 9:15 am, so I was there by 9:05 am. They promptly showed up at 10:05 am. I spent the time setting up for all the guests.
The bounce house was what I ordered and the generator for it worked. The kids’ tables and chairs were clean.
The coffee and bagels were delivered by a DoorDash person who didn’t speak English. I answered the phone and there was no speaking except for “bagel.” It took me a while to track him and his wife and father down to a concrete park table thirty yards from the pavilion. The delivery instructions say “We are located at the only pavilion in the park.” My Korean is rusty so there was no way to talk except for me to sign the screen accepting delivery. Still, the coffee was hot and the bagels were tolerable as long as you have never tasted a good bagel before.
I got a text saying the pizza would be delivered at 11:02, thirteen minutes early from the promised 11:15 am (which I never believed). The text said they needed directions. I pulled out my receipt, which had all the directions on it. I got a call a minute later but no one talked. Are my Korean friends back so soon? I texted but he finally texted back “No English.” I responded “Espagnol? 日本語? Français? Italiano?” but there was no answer. He started sending photos of his location—at the next-door elementary school. He was driving away when I found him. He was Ukrainian, and my Russian is limited to дует, дует (“It’s blowing! It’s blowing!” which is limited to meteorological situations and has little use in the context of frustrating delivery services at a toddler’s birthday party.) I lugged the stack of pizza boxes to the party. They had delivered four pepperoni pizzas, two cheese, one margherita, and one Hawaiian. It wasn’t what I ordered but it was close.
We finally came to the bundt cupcakes. They were vanilla and confetti and chocolate chip, not chocolate. Sigh.
So all in all it was a great party. Most importantly, Matthew had an absolute blast.
The class parents are all great people and I enjoy talking to them. Better yet, many neighbors were there and it was great just to see them again. I get a big kick out of our neighbors.
As the party came to an end, three boys watched the bounce house get packed up.
Ever since all the medical stuff last summer, autumn, and winter, I haven’t felt very good at all. I have felt better in the last couple of weeks than I have for eight months, so it was a great day to be out and about.
We got a huge pile of presents from the party. Matthew was overjoyed because he has been on a huge “I want presents!” kick since Christmas, as in he asks our nanny every single day if she has brought him a present. While Matthew was in the bounce house toward the end of the party, Curtis and our good friend Harry took the presents to Curtis’s car. Matthew didn’t notice, but he did notice that I was handing out little gift bags to the children as they left. The gift bags are colorful and have tissue paper in them and had four gifts: a kaleidoscope, a snap bracelet, a mini-slinky, and something else that I have forgotten.
When we got home, Matthew had to take a short nap. But then the very first thing we had to do was to use his new chalk to draw on the driveway
He saw the big box of colorful gift bags and assumed they were his presents.
He has been poring over them and seems a little perplexed at the paucity of the gifts. He doesn’t know that the real gifts start getting delivered tonight…
Wow. You handled all that really well. I’m retiring in four years, and I’m looking for a party planner. What do you suggest as a bounce house-like activity for adults? 😉
Happy Birthday, Matthew!! And good job to the parents! That went well. 😊