When Nick and I were growing up, birthday parties were the biggest thing to look forward to; going to a friends house, having cake, playing games, watching them open gifts and get a goodie bag full of gifts and we went home. Nowadays, these parties are quickly becoming a thing of the past, or so it seems.

When Nick and I were looking on the calendar to have Maddox’s party, we hesitated on what we should do. We wanted to have a celebration, but what and where. During our conversations, I noticed a thread on a mommy facebook group I am apart of it and it was dealing with birthday parties. Perfect timing! I chose to follow the thread to see what other families are doing as far as parties for kids Maddox’s age and for older and I was SHOCKED by what I was reading!! Parents would send invites to friends (parent’s of the friends) and what happened next was just sad. The parents would not RSVP back so the party planners would have no idea on final numbers or that they would RSVP and no one would show up. How devastating! The child sees the house decorated, parents get the child excited for everyone to show up and there is no one! The goodie bags are not handed out and the candles are not lit. The child doesn’t understand why no one would show up to their party and the parents are sad and angry. What happened? Legit, there were pictures in this thread of the beautifully decorated house, that was empty. I was tearing up reading the comments. Your heart goes out to them.

Thankfully, in our close network this is not an issue as family and close friends understand the importance of RSVPs and planning, but it makes you think of classmates and their families if we even want to travel down that road. Especially when Maddox’s birthday is in the summer as he will be constantly having new classmates ever year. So what do we do? This year, we actually found a plan that sounds like a blast and something we could do again in the future for easy, a baseball game. If there is anything that Nick and I have mastered, it’s tailgating. 🙂 Perfect, the call was made, the tickets were reserved and the invites were sent. We have been to a ton of games already this year so I know he knows what to expect. Done!

A comment was said to me that made me stop in my tracks after someone read the invite. Really? A baseball game for his 3rd party, aren’t you setting the bar a bit high? What are you going to do next year to top it? Well, I really didn’t think of it that way but after reflection on the question and where the ‘bar’ is I had a CF Mommy moment. He is healthy, happy, and enjoying life and we never know what tomorrow can bring. Why not enjoy life and have fun with it. I do have ideas for the future as he grows; Funset boulevard, Building Center for kids, a pool party at a hotel in the valley, etc. It might seem like we are setting it high, but this makes sense for us; we know what to expect, everyone can have fun at the game and we don’t have to stress about having a clean house ;). Bring on the burgers, brats and take me out to the ball game!