Yesterday my mom took j (and me and P) to the circus. It was much better than I expected, and a really nice activity for j. I think he's going to be pretty good at sitting still for the theatre soon. He was mesmerized--maybe "stupified" is a better term. We had to pry him out of his seat at intermission to go to the bathroom, and he refused to leave after it was over. There were a few tears (I don't wanna go!) but eventually he let me carry him to the car.
In other j news, this morning my neighbors and fellow rowers K and D come over to assist me and P as we move our old couch to the basement (long story), and D presents me with an invitation for j to her son's 4th birthday party. I am excited: this is j's first birthday party invite, or at least his first since he's been old enough to understand what a birthday party is. (I attribute the lack of invitations to our having moved around so much in the first few years of his life.) So I open the invitation and see that the party isn't at her house, but at an address in a nearby town. I pause. "Who are the McDonald's?" I ask, curious about how the family is related to D. And as soon as the words come out of my mouth I realize that the party is *at* McDonald's, and I am (or am going to be) the crazy neighborhood mom who doesn't quite get it.
We try to avoid fast food with j, though he definitely has had his fair share in his short life. I am thrilled about this invitation, and I don't really care that the party is at McDonald's. It's just that I'm so out of things that I wouldn't even have thought a birthday party would be anywhere other than at home. The birthday-party-outsourcing is something that seems to be commonplace here. Is that true everywhere? I'm still trying to get used to this town and being a mom--or rather, a mom who talks with other moms--so I have a lot to learn.
3 comments:
So, so, so true. In fact we are outsourcing this year - gulp.
I went to a lot of McDonald's b-days as a kid. I didn't know they still did that . . .
people here still seem to have the parties at home, but when the weather gets bad I've seen suggestions of play dates at the local chick-fil-a which has a play yard.
And like Erica, I remember b-day parties at McDonalds even if my parents never did it
Now that I think about it, I went to at least one party at Burger King as a kid. Someone else in the neighborhood is doing a laser-tag birthday, and I think a Little Gym kind of thing would be cool.
I wonder if we can continue to avoid any decisions on this front since j will have MI celebrations every year because of his August birthday. :)
Erica, where are you guys outsourcing this year?
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