Drop Off, Nearly Drop Dead Party!

Oh boy was somebody excited to have her very first “drop off” party! Ever since Braelyn went to her little friend’s birthday party where the parents just dropped the kids off and left, she has been obsessed with having her party follow suit. In fact, when we went to hand deliver each of the invitations, she made it a point to tell each and every parent, “You’re not invited!” After the first few rounds of invites I decided to stay in the car to avoid further embarrassment of my child’s unavoidable bluntness. Even leading up to the minute the party began, Braelyn was making sure to tell parents, “You can leave now!”

I’ll admit, I was a little hesitant at first to have the parents drop and go. It’s always a toss up deciding whether to have parents just drop their kids off for a birthday party rather than stick around to help wrangle the mob of kids. Last year I spent hours decorating the house, setting up games and baking three flavors of cupcakes just to have the kids scowling back at me with the look of, “You want me to do what?!” in their eyes. Hardly a single child left their parents’ laps to participate. One of the games actually made the kids cry. Who knew popping balloons could be so torturous?!

Anywho, the worst part of the party, other than the wasted effort, was the embarrassment that I felt having all these parents watching me squirm around trying to salvage each and every mishap. I vowed the next year that no parents would be allowed! So this year, deciding to do a joint birthday party, I was relieved when both of us mommies were on the same page with the “no parents” option. With the expertise of my wonderful friend, photographer and card maker Jocie McCune, we came up with an adorably subtle invite that basically said, “leave your kids and go home so we can let them do whatever the heck they want for two hours without any judgment from you!” Haha!

And this plan was working spectacularly well until our enormous bounce house began deflating with the children still inside. In that moment of terror, I was quite appreciative of the parents that actually decided to stick around and mingle. Thanks to their quick efforts we were able to lift the giant bounce house so Ben could rescue Braelyn who was trapped inside. Yep, the birthday girl was engulfed by her very own birthday bounce house. That’s a day to remember.

Luckily everyone was safe and sound, besides two irritated mommies who demanded a refund for a defective killer bounce house. It’s a good thing I brought some back up games in case the kids got bored. We whipped those out real fast. In fact, they were all the same games I used last year. The only difference was this year they proved to be winners: “Prince, Prince, Frog”, “Pin the Tiara on the Princess” and the classic homemade piñata. Plus, you can always distract kiddos with chocolate cupcakes!

All in all, we had a fabulous day with our 4 year old princess. We are so lucky to have this crazy, spunky, talkative little chocoholic energizer bunny in our family. We love you so much Braelyn Boo!