Soon after I dropped Petunia's party invitations in the mail today, I received the mountain of mail that's been held for us at the local post office. Atop the pile was an invitation for another birthday party on the same date and at the same time, for a girl who's also invited to Petunia's party. This girl's party is at a local gymnastics place, whereas Petunia is having a party at our home for the first time. We're hosting a dinosaur dig for seven guests, a nice-sized party that we can accommodate at home. Since our party doesn't involve a reservation or deposit elsewhere, I figured that the right response to the conflict is to move the time of our party. Two parties on one day isn't any parent's idea of a great weekend day, but it's better than a conflict resulting in multiple children having to choose between friends and a lot of hurt feelings. Petunia agreed with my action plan and skipped off to wreck some tennis balls.
But the problem was far from resolved: I called the girl's mother who was hosting the conflicting party, leaving her a voice mail regarding the conflict and our plan of action. A couple of hours later, she voice mailed me back to warn me that ANOTHER girl's party, a bowling one, was also occurring that day, in the morning. Two parties in one day stinks, but three parties in one day? No way. I wouldn't allow Petunia to attend three in a day, and she wouldn't want to, either.
So, I did what I do in these situations and called my friend and neighbor, June Cleaver, to freak out. She talked me through several scenarios, and we decided that the best course of action is to move Petunia's party to Friday after school. It'll be a little tricky to sneak seven kids away from the school without other, not-invited kids wondering what we're doing; but, at this point, I can't worry about that. I'll call the other moms tomorrow, make sure that the new date/time works for everyone, then send out reminder/change-of-date postcards, because I'm organized like that [insert laugh track here].
If all of this planning doesn't work out, we're implementing plan D: Our family dragging the Cleavers into NYC for the day for Build-A-Dino, Natural History Museum fun. In response to that offer, Petunia said that she might just hope that her party doesn't work out. But then again, there's always next year.
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