The Dreaded Guest List

Ricky turned 5 over the weekend and I still can't believe that MY BABY IS FIVE!! Anyways, we had 4 days of celebration - Thursday we had a party for him with all 15 boys from preschool at one of those jumpy places, he had a party at school Friday, a small celebration here at home Saturday with just us, and a big family party for him Sunday. We're all wiped out!! I think there's a Berenstain Bears book that should be called, "Too Much Birthday."

The weird part about his birthday was that he wanted to invite all the boys from preschool. We couldn't invite all the boys and girls - because that was too many kids for the jumpy place. So we didn't invite our other friends who have girls or boys, or boys who don't go to preschool with Ricky. We didn't invite a lot our friends and that felt wrong and very strange.

While adults were free at the jumpy place, our party was for 15 kids - and that's exactly how many we had. Each additional kid was $10. It was a drop off or stay party for the parents. There are a few friends we would have loved to invite but they live in the suburbs and would have had to bring the younger siblings along - which would have meant 12 additional kids to pay for that were just siblings. So we didn't even bother inviting them. It was hard to draw the line and I hope there are no hard feelings. If Ricky had a summer birthday, it would be great to just have a huge barbeque bash at a forest preserve and invite everyone.

I talked to some of my mommy friends about it and apologized for not inviting them and they all assured me that no offense was taken. My friends who have girls said that they plan on having all-girls parties - or all girls parties with only 4 girls invited. I have a friend whose kids are older - in 3rd and 4th grade - and she assured me that it's normal practice among all the kids and everyone usually understands. But even still, there's a part of me that can't help feeling bad.

There are so many parts of Ricky's birthday I want to blog about - I'll have to do it in bits and pieces.

Taun Taun Sleeping Bag Rocks Ricky's 5th Birthday

My sister and brother in law ordered this from thinkgeek.com. I've seen it before as a link sent on facebook as a hahaha thing, but this is totally cool. The zipper is a lightsaber, the head of the taun taun is the perfect pillow, and it's just downright cool. Ricky sleeps inside it on top of his bed and during the day he snuggles in it while he watches cartoons or plays video games. He's been saying it's his favorite present *every single day* since he got it. It's the perfect present for the young padawan - too cute.

Baby Ducky is THREE - party number one

I've survived 4 days on Clomid and looks like my husband has also. The only time I felt the meds were making me crazy was over the weekend when Ricky begged my mom to stay a bit longer to read some bedtime books. She really needed to go - as did my sis and brother in law, but Ricky kept begging and begging. He was so cute pleading that I got a bit weepy-eyed. It's not over yet - one more day!

So we had Ricky's first (of 2 parties) birthday party at a pizza place. This was the family party. I ordered him a Dinosaur cake - which he liked and he is running all around the house with the dinosaurs - Mark cleaned them off first, of course. Ricky loves family gatherings so he was very happy and hardly ate a bite of anything. But he gets that way when he is excited - as he did at Christmas - he ate nothing all day.

We were mean parents and asked all our family members to not buy him any toys. He has way too many toys and we have run out of room. He received lots of educational books and materials - to his and his mother's delight. I am so happy my son likes books so much. What on earth would I do if he hated books? He loves Little Quack and my sister and brother in law bought him all the Little Quack books and the stuffed animal - as you can see.