Apparently, I'm insane

It's midnight and there are six shrieking ten-year-old girls in my basement. Why? Because I suffered a temporary lapse of judgment and INVITED them. Or at least I allowed them to be invited. Julie is celebrating her birthday with every preteen girl's favourite pastime - a pajama party. Oh my - WHAT was I thinking?

They're all decent girls, and mostly things have been going swimmingly, but there have been moments when I was almost certain I'd have to call for back-up. (Did I mention that my husband abandoned me? Yeah, he's sitting in a pub somewhere watching a friend play jazz. Probably with a glass in his hand and a smile on his face. Hmmm... I think he owes me BIG time.)

My least favourite moment - the one that ALMOST convinced me to call all the parents and say "HELP! Get these children out of here!" was about half an hour after all the adults had abandoned me. After cake and ice cream (yes, the depths of my insanity knows no bounds - I pumped them full of sugar!), the girls had disappeared into the basement to watch a movie. I poured the last of the coke into a glass and was about to sit down to enjoy it in a rare moment of peace and quiet. Yeah, sure. No rest for Mommy. And no coke either. I dumped the WHOLE cup of coke all over the floor. Yeah, Coke. Sticky. Sticky walls, sticky floor, sticky legs. Sad, sad mommy. And absolutely nothing else in the house I felt like drinking. Colour me disappointed. And sticky.

But that was only the beginning of my misadventure. Julie called from the basement that the movie wasn't working. I went downstairs to a very hyper room full of little girls. And in the middle of that, I discovered that some of them had managed to burst the air mattress they were supposed to sleep on by jumping on it. And someone else had spilled a whole cup of pop on the futon - the other place where some of them were supposed to sleep. And remember what had brought me downstairs in the first place - the movie wasn't working. Ahhhhh!!! Panic! No beds for them to sleep on and no movie to give me at least an hour of peace. WHAT was I going to do? Umm... let's just say the girls saw my grumpy side at that moment.

Well, I managed to clean up the mess, flip the futon to the dry side, and get the movie working again. They remained relatively quiet while watching the movie and no-one has come up to report any more spilled drinks or other mis-haps. They're managing to make themselves relatively comfortable in sleeping bags on the hard floor, so if they ever actually lie down, perhaps we'll all get at least a little sleep.

Did I mention that before this insanity started, I thought it would be a good idea to sew them ALL funky purses as their goodie bags? Yeah, that's right, I really AM insane. And this was in the middle of one of the craziest months EVER with soccer every night, a major week-long session of board meetings and schmoozing out of town big-wigs, and about 15 parties for the girls to go to. (And in case you're wondering why there are SEVEN bags, it's because I actually let Julie invite SEVEN people, but rather mercifully, two of them couldn't make it.)
But lest you should think I'm the only one who's a little insane/obsessive/ought-to-be-committed, I didn't actually do much of the actual work of planning the party. That would be my amazing sister ccap and two friends. They organized an Amazing Race game all over the neighbourhood. It was a hit for all involved, including the adults who huffed and puffed trying to keep up with a bunch of energetic and highly competitive little girls. (We had to go along to save the girls from themselves - on more than one occasion, we had to hold them back from plunging into the street in front of a car - out of sheer competitiveness.) We were happy for the clues that actually required a bit of time and effort on their parts (like drinking an entire Slurpee, chewing each piece of Bubblicious gum in a pack until they could successfully blow a bubble, and putting together a Kinder Surprise after eating the chocolate.)

And then after planning an elaborate game, The Amazing Auntie baked a matching cake. My girls are possibly the luckiest kids around to have her for an auntie. She has set the standard impossibly high - I can't imagine how I'll ever live up to this with her off-spring.
Seriously, though, other than the moment of sheer panic, I don't mind the giggles of girls in the basement. I'm happy for the friendships they have and I like to see them having fun. I'll get through this night in one piece (just a little sticky and probably a tad tired), and hopefully I've helped create a memory that will stick with them. Some day this house will be painfully quiet and I'll probably long for just one more crazy night of giggling. For now, I'll try to enjoy it.

Now please, PLEASE let this thunderstorm pass without any of the girls getting scared OR (heaven forbid) the power going out! There's only so much I can take!

Eureka! I think I've got it!

Further to my earlier post about birthday parties and the resulting truckload of stuff that takes over my home, I've been wrestling what to do with Nikki's party next week. As some of you have mentioned, we don't plan large parties, so it's not like I have twenty kids giving her gifts. But even four gifts, when you add it to everything she gets from her aunties and uncles and grandparents, ends up being a lot. I also don't give away traditional goodie bags. Instead, I've done things like take a picture of the party gang, print it on photo paper and put it in a funky (and cheap) frame for them to take home. I've also printed the picture on iron-on paper and then ironed it onto pillow cases. I'd rather give them a meaningful momento of the party than a bunch of crap that will end up in the landfill site.

But, despite these attempts to keep our parties within reason, I keep wrestling with the thought that there is still too much excess, and most of the gifts bought are probably made by some impoverished peasant working in a sweatshop and living on less than a dollar a day. I've tried to convince the girls that they should consider asking their friends to donate to a worthy cause instead of buying presents, but so far, they haven't been willing to make the sacrifice entirely. (Julie has given some of her birthday money away to the foster child sponsored by the children's community at church, but she didn't entirely forego gifts.)

This year, I've stumbled onto an idea that I think might be a hit. We live really close to Ten Thousand Villages, our favourite fair trade store. The girls and I love visiting this store and we often buy the gifts they bring to their friends' parties from there. They have interesting things from all over the world, and Nikki goes gaga over their funky jewellery.

So I'm going to suggest that instead of bringing gifts, her friends bring her a small amount of money and together we'll all go shopping for a few gifts for her from Ten Thousand Villages. It's a win-win situation. She'll still get gifts, but at least there will be some small amount of justice in the purchases made. I've contacted the store to see if they can help me make it even more meaningful and fun for the girls. Perhaps we'll include some storytelling about the things that they're buying and the places they come from, or some kind of scavenger hunt in the store.

Maybe, just maybe, a few ten and eleven-year-old girls will be inspired to put a little thought into what they purchase and why. If nothing else, I won't feel as overwhelmed by the clutter that another birthday party brings to my house.