Yeah, I am still in the party mood, so I figured we should stick to the subject. Throwing a party for a bunch of 9 year old girls is not for the faint of heart. Of course, I should not complain much, since the wonderful adults in the household took care of most of the details. That is why this post is mostly for you, cool adults, so you know in advance what you are getting into. Still…you would never guess how much time and effort it takes to choose the right outfit or to keep your guests excited with leaked details about the surprises at the party, weeks in advance.
For those of you brave enough to organize a birthday party at home, here are the absolute DO’s and DON’Ts for success:
- If your kid tells you that she invited 10 friends for school, be prepared for about 20 loud girls to appear at your doorstep; there will always be some girls who really wanted to come and you just couldn’t say no.
- Have a mini pharmacy at hand stocked with band aids (only cool ones, with prints, since a 9 year old girl would rather bleed than wear something you would not find on Miranda Sings herself), anti-mosquito spray, disinfectant and cool aid for the occasional tummy troubles…yeah, you thought you hid the M&Ms, but we are smarter than that!
- DO NOT use your good china or your fancy white table cloths; smoothie challenges and drama queen tantrums involving ketchup and juice are inevitable at any respectable party; go green and use recyclable table wear.
- Design and print the invitations at least 2 weeks in advance; you should avoid at all costs that another girl wants to celebrate her birthday on the same day; God forbid she is one of the popular ones and everybody wants to go to THAT party and not mine.
- With all precaution measures taken and even if you ask the parents when they confirm the invitation, there is always an allergic kid at the party; if it wasn’t the food, it was a weird insect, or the dog, or dust, or pixie dust! Make sure that pharmacy is also stocked with some allergy medication you know it works.
- DO come up with a list of activities to entertain the crowd; if you are not prepared with a diverse selection of games, trivia, dancing sessions, karaoke or whatever else crosses your mind, you will end up with some wild girls running around just looking for trouble, or wasting away on your couch nose buried in their phones.
- DO set boundaries and access limits in your house; that is if you don’t want a costume party in your closet…
- Remember that 9 year old girls feed on attention, so there might be screaming, crying, collapsing on the floor; do not panic, count to 60, if it stops, it was just part of the fun.
- Be prepared for the moment you serve dessert; you will be surrounded by sugar craving, loud party machines who will not pick and choose; if you serve cake, ice cream and cookies, don’t bother to ask who wants what.
- There might be a good idea to invite some of your adult friends over, so you can keep entertained…and sane; the last thing we want to do is have you mingling around, being bossy or the worst, trying to be the cool parent.
Last but not least, I might be mean to you that day and you will feel like you worked so hard to make me happy and I am just a spoiled ungrateful brat. No, no, no! I love you most in the world and I secretly feel so proud in front of my friends that I have the most amazing parents ever. I just can’t show it…it is so not cool. Not cool!
Good luck and have fun!