“You knew it would be hard and it would be uncomfortable and it might be awkward and you did it anyway. That’s courage.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
I did it. We did it, I should say. We threw a backyard birthday party for Mr. D’s sixth birthday and hosted 21 kids under the age of eight plus about a dozen parents. And the we? I hired Miss O and two of her 10-year-old friends to help. I also had the invaluable assistance of a young woman who was Mr. D’s pre-school teacher and has become a great family friend.
Here are ten things I seem to learn and re-learn about the life(cycle) of the party.
- Parties are a great forcing function. I’m guessing it would be easier to rent a party venue. But I love the opportunity to invest in my home. I try to do a home improvement project and a purge project before every party. I don’t think I sat down for three days leading up to the event. But I laid more pavers to expand my backyard seating area and filled eight bags of dishware, textiles, and toys to give away. That alone made the party a win before it even started!
- You have to sleep on it to learn. I walked 22,160 steps on the day of the party. At the end of the day, I was too exhausted to know or feel anything…other than tired. The lessons learned didn’t show up til the next morning.
- Even the happiest of events will exhaust you. Mr. D loved his party. It was a fair theme with Crocodile Cave water slide on one side of the yard, an inflatable hot tub on the other and in between a bottle-ring toss game, Skee ball setup, fishing game, and a flipping rings game. After lunch and birthday cake, we made shaved ice cones, cotton candy, applied tattoos and had a ballon art station.
Mr. D almost fell asleep in his dinner. - You plan, plan, plan… and then let it happen. Miss O had beautifully drawn out the time table for three party phases: WET, DRYING, and DRY. We had roles assigned for each. We were about 15 minutes into the party when we made our first substitution.
- There is that guy at parties regardless of age. In one terrifying moment, I came eyeball-to-eyeball with a six-year-old that said, “I’m going to open the gecko’s cage.” I had to race the kid to the keys. I never thought twice about leaving the enclosure key in the door like we always do.
The party shtick of that guy (not meant to be gender specific) starts early. - The messy middle happens every time. There was a moment right before birthday cake where it all felt impossible. We took a deep breath and made it through.
- No one naturally markets their stuff. Each of the “fair activities” had its own arc. But when the lines at a particular stand ebbed, nobody wanted to be the carnival barker to attract an audience.
- Mixing up the ages benefits everyone. In this case it was letting older kids take care of younger kids. It made both ages feel special.
- Save time for the after part. My favorite part was after all the guests left. The workers, Miss O, and Mr. D got to really enjoy the fun.
- There are a few people that will go the extra mile to appreciate the effort. Keep them close. All the parents were lovely and grateful. A couple went out of the way to tell me afterwards what they appreciated. I suspect these are also the people I know, online and in real life, that take the time to leave good reviews. I want to be more like them.
Looking this over, I think it might be the lifecycle of all the hard things I’ve done. What do you think – is there a predictable arc of big to-dos? Did I miss any lessons learned?
(featured photo from Pexels)
You can find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wynneleon/ and Instagram @wynneleon
I host the How to Share podcast, a podcast about collaboration – in our families, friendships, at work and in the world.
I also co-host the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast, an author, creator and storytelling podcast with the amazing Vicki Atkinson.
Surprised By Joy 