We’re in full-scale planning mode for E’s 3rd birthday in a couple weeks (I can’t believe she’s almost 3, but I’ll save that angst for a future post).
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed my near-frantic searching in recent weeks for any and all things related to a pirate birthday party — for girls! It’s a little hard to find pirate party supplies, invites, etc. that aren’t so boy-centric or designed for wenches. No, not the pirate kind. The slutty kind.
We’re not exactly sure why, but starting this past summer, E. demanded insisted that she wanted a pirate birthday party (too many times watching Peter Pan?). We kept expecting her to get over it, but she’s stuck to her swords. So a pirate’s life for us.
After much searching, I found some super cute invites on Etsy:
Don’t get excited by the name Ella. That’s not our E. — it’s just the sample from Cuties TyeDye Boutique. Don’t believe me? Check for yourself.
It’s a little pink for my taste but it’s far better than anything else we found. Besides, she kinda looks like our pirate girl, huh?
The invites were sent out this week. Check. We invited just close friends and family. Those close friends include six kids around E’s age. But today we got our first RSVP and it’s not good. Her main man K can’t come! Oh nooooo! Look at these two. How can we have a party without K?
What if other kids can’t come? Will E. be bouncing in her bounce house alone? (DadJovi’s decision. Not mine. I think it’s excessive, but I guess that’s what we get for having one kid).
So now we’re start to panic a bit. And we’re debating inviting kids from her preschool. So here’s where I need your help. E. has 16 other kids in her class. I know not all of them would come, but the planner in me worries that they would all show up. And our house just isn’t big enough to handle that many kids and parents.
Do we need to invite none or all? Are they too young to know if they were or weren’t invited to a party? Parents would know though, right? It’s not that I want to leave anyone out for any specific reason. But I know in her class that she primarily plays with five or six kids, the ones closest to her age. I’ve thought about just inviting the girls, but she plays a lot with two boys in particular.
E. has been invited to two classmates’ birthday parties so far, and I’m not sure how their parents handled it because unfortunately we weren’t able to attend either. But one was held at a house and another at Gymboree, so I have a feeling the first only invited a few kids and the second invited everyone. But I don’t know for sure. Should I email the first mom and ask her? Is that weird?
I’m just struggling with what we should do about this. If we’re going to invite all the other kids, I really need to do it next week since the party is only three weeks away at this point.
Thoughts? Experiences? Should we just forget about inviting her classmates (even though she spends four days a week with them and seems to really have fun playing with them) and hope that a couple of our friends can come? Or should we just throw caution into the wind and invite all 16?
Help!!!
When ours were little we always just invited their whole class. However, we have a very small house, and never had these parties there. We always had them at a play place or at a park or something. Now that they are older they want sleep-over parties and we just let them invite a few kids. Probably only half would come, but you never know. Sorry, I know this isn’t much help. If it were me, I’d probably just throw caution to the wind, invite them all and deal with the chaos if they show up. What kills me is how many people don’t even RSVP anymore, so it’s really hard to plan goody bags and the number of plates, etc. that you need. Grrr. I hate that. Good luck! And I KNEW her name must be Esmerelda. Or Elvira. 😉
I can’t believe you figured out her name is Elvira! 🙂
If we were better planners and had anticipated being in a position that we’d be inviting the whole class, I think we would have taken your suggestion for a park or other outside location. But we honestly, for one more year, wanted to keep it slightly smaller and avoid the birthday party madness. I think we’re just panicking and really should stick to just out friends and family but we’ll see …
My little girl will be in preschool next year for her 3rd bday and I’m so interested to see how you handle this. I have no clue on what the protocol for that is.
Clearly I have no clue either. Shouldn’t there be some sort of handbook that just tells us what to do in this situations?? Luckily for you, I’m sure I’ll do the wrong thing and you’ll be able to learn from my mistake! I’ll keep you posted!
Sorry dear, I currently do not have the necessary experience to furnish my two cents. The only thing I can say is, good luck, have fun planning the birthday party & Hugs to E from us 🙂