Birthday Party Tale

One of Calfgrit3’s preschool classmates had her 3rd birthday party. It was held at a place called Planet Child — I don’t know if it is a chain or just a local place, but it’s very cool.

The place is a large room (the size of a large house) with big theme areas (the size of small and large rooms) throughout. There’s a fantasy castle, with a stage and faux medieval clothes to play dress up. There’s an “undersea tunnel” with an aquarium, a lighthouse with steps for the kids to climb up and look out over the whole big room. There’s a safari area, a grocery store area, a model train set up, and more. It’s really a great place for kids to play.

There were 32 kids at the party. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a kids party with that many kids. I think the largest I’ve been to was about 12 kids. The theme of the party was “princesses.” The party was fine, and I don’t think the kids noticed or cared, but it looked like having boys at the party was an after thought. It wasn’t “princesses and princes,” it was “princesses and might as well be princesses, too.”

There were 12 moms and 5 dads. This has always been the ratio of parents at kids’ birthday parties I’ve been to. It seems I’m one of only a few dads who do the birthday party gig. I like kids’ birthday parties. There’s cake!

At one point during the festivities, I overheard some mom’s laughing at one of the dads. He had apparently done something embarrassing recently, and the ladies thought it funny. The dad told me the story:

He took his son to another child’s birthday party the day before, at another kids-play location. There were two birthday parties happening that day at that location, and in a strange coincidence, the birthday girls had virtually the same name: Sophie and Sophia.

The dad walked into the business and showed the receptionist the birthday invitation. The receptionist told him where to go for the party, and he and his son went in. The dad didn’t recognize any of the parents or children, but that’s actually not that unexpected. For instance, I’ve only seen the parents and children at this latest party a couple times at school, and I only recognized one of the parents. I recognized only two of the children, and then only after being reintroduced to them.

So the dad didn’t think it too weird to not recognize anyone. And apparently his son didn’t say anything. (He probably didn’t care — meet new friends, play, and eat cake.) The dad talked with some of the parents at the party, and even spoke with the parents of the birthday girl. No one said anything to him. No one asked who he was, or what his son was doing at the party. The birthday girl even opened their gift.

He didn’t find out he was in the wrong party until afterwards when he left and saw people he recognized in the other party area.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com