Disclaimer: Rebecca’s birthday was on October 27th, but her birthday party was on November 10th (it was my husband’s idea). Because Rebecca’s birthday party has already passed, I’m going to write this blog post in the past tense. If you spot any mistakes please let me know and I’ll make corrections. The same article can be found on Medium but is behind a paywall. If you are still interested in checking it out, then you can do so by clicking on the following link:

♡ Medium Article: Will You Come to My Party?

𝕎𝕖 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕚𝕟𝕧𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤, 𝕤𝕠 𝕟𝕠𝕨 𝕨𝕖 𝕨𝕒𝕚𝕥.

My daughter recently turned 6 years old, and after much thought, my husband and I decided to host her birthday party at an indoor playground this year. Indoor playgrounds are the perfect place for children because they offer fun equipment like monkey bars, climbing walls, and other features that children love!

My daughter was excited about her upcoming birthday party which is totally understandable. Throwing a party is an important part of childhood and it can create memories that last a lifetime. I wanted to give my daughter the same upbringing that I had as a kid, but unfortunately, our house is too small for large gatherings and I didn’t want the kids to be running around or messing with things. So, an indoor playground it was!

My husband had a good idea when he suggested that we invite my daughter’s classmates to the party. Sometimes, you just need to go big or go home! 😂

I spent all Monday evening working on my daughter’s invitations and it felt like a school project all over again. Fiddling with every last detail, and even ripping envelopes that I messed up not once, but three times, I was exhausted. When I saw the finished product, however, I knew all of the hard work was worth it.

Despite all of my work, I spelled Abby’s name wrong and my daughter made a big fuss about it. Meanwhile, she didn’t know how to spell Abby’s name either so I had to guess.

Becca: Abbey’s name is spelled with an eeeeeeeeee!!!

And now I know. I won’t make that mistake again.

Party Anxiety

In many ways, hosting a birthday party sounds like a dream come true for any kid; however, there is plenty of anxiety that goes into planning them. If you’ve ever hosted a kids’ party before, then you know exactly what I mean.

For some people, RSVPs can be a major source of anxiety when hosting an event. As a rule, invitations should go out as soon as possible after being personalized for guests. Since we were still in the early stages with our RSVPs and waiting to hear back is never fun, it would have been much easier to get everything in order if we knew how many kids were coming.

Then we played the waiting game.

Only 2 kids RSVPd on time, which heightened my anxiety even more. I kept telling myself, This is okay. Everything is going to be okay.

It is always helpful to include an RSVP by [date] on your invitation, as it gives guests more time to plan before the party. I got excited every time I got a call from an unknown number because I thought it might be a parent telling me their child would be attending my daughter’s birthday party. However, it was mostly spam or work-related calls.

There was something very stressful about waiting to see who would RSVP to her birthday party. Would her party be a success or would it be a total flop? There were too many unknowns, and without experience hosting kids’ parties, all I could do was eat Cheetos and patiently wait. But here’s the thing:

👉 My vocabulary does not have patience in it, because I am an impatient person.

Being a parent can be challenging, and the worst-case scenario would be to have a “teddy bear picnic” for my daughter if nobody RSVPd. I’m sure she would be just as happy with that, but it’s not the same as having a birthday party. My daughter loves her toy cat and drags it with her everywhere, which is the equivalent of a security blanket for children.

With 10 out of 12 kids who RSVPd attending my daughter’s birthday party yesterday, and with 11 total kids in attendance including my daughter, I’m happy to report that I think it was worth it. If my daughter is still into indoor playgrounds when she turns 7 years old, it’s something that we would consider doing again. If anything, we learned that weeknights do not work for most parents, and that weekends are probably best when planning a kid’s birthday party.

I ask the parents on WordPress, have you ever experienced this? Feel free to share your experience in the comments below ↓ I will do my best to reply to your comments as I am working again this weekend.

Thanks for stopping by! ♥