FODDER OF THE WEEK: BEST PARTY PRACTICES- WHO MAKES THE V.I.P. LIST 4 YOUR CHILD’S 2ND B-DAY BASH

 

When coming up with a guest list for your 2-year-olds birthday party, you will have many important considerations to make. After all, who you invite to this party, or any party for that matter, can make or break the occasion. Of course, you will have to invite immediate family and close friends, but who you invite beyond that is really a matter of who will make the day both special for your child and you, the parent.

Don't invite these dudes...

Now, in this day and age, kid’s birthday parties are stressful. It’s not like you can hold a small get together in your dining room, serve some cake and call it a day. No, kid’s birthday parties in 2012 require a lot more planning, and preparation. You need to book a play place, and you need to come up with a theme. You might need an elaborate cake, and some entertainment, and you will most certainly need at least few party-sized pizzas to pull it off. But, again, it’s the people who make the party, so who are the most important people to invite?

Most certainly not this dude!

Well, the parents are important (they’re the ones who will be paying for this event), and the grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in and around the same age. Your child’s friends are obviously going to get the invite, and, well, it’s always nice if their parents come along. And you’ll invite your friends too- those people who support you through thick and thin, and usually bring the coolest presents. But who is by far THE most important guest a parent can invite to their small child’s birthday party, especially if that birthday party is in a play place where the kids will be running around at 10:30 on a Sunday morning, going up and down the slide, climbing in and out of the bouncy castle, and chasing each other in and around those little tiny houses that no parent in their right mind would ever try to stick their fat ass in to? Give up?

HINT: ITS NOT THIS DUDE

Ready...6-year-old girls… Yup, the best babysitters a parent running a 2-year-old’s birthday party could ever ask for. And, if you invite them to the party, they’re services are free! Why chase after your own kid when you can be talking to your friends over a freshly brewed cup of coffee and leave the running around to someone who, with little or no direction, can corral your kid and move them from one activity to the next?

Hell, we invited three of them to my daughter’s birthday party, and I have to say, it was a great success. No parents complaining of back problems from having to bend down too much. No grandparents getting out of breath because they couldn’t keep up, and no children running around aimlessly when their parents got lost in a conversation over who had the more troublesome child, forgetting that they weren’t watching said child.

You know, if the child labor laws weren’t so strict in North America I would probably try to turn this in to a business. I mean, screw the clown. You want to keep 2-year-olds entertained: hire a bunch of 6-year-old girls! They even keep the older kids in line… especially the boys.

So the next time you have a birthday party in a play place and you’re stressing out over who to invite, take it from me: offer some 6-year-old girls a place to play for a few hours, and a good time (watching over some toddlers), and you’ve got it made.

Those girls know how to par-tay… safely, and responsibly.

Your second consideration, of course: who will bring your kid the best birthday present? But, that’s a conversation for another day…