I love celebrating birthdays! In fact, the Hubs and I started celebrating our birthdays with a party! Why not right? Why do the kids get to have all the fun?
This is not about my birthday. Not that I'm not counting down the days. This is about my tween's birthday.
My Spawn turned 12 years-old at the end of summer. Summer birthdays are great because you don't have to invite the whole class.
Instead of a party last year, we took Spawn and his best friend to Great Wolf Lodge. I loved it. I didn't have to clean. Also, they have a bar and the kids are old enough to stay behind with a movie and a pizza while the Hubs and I have dinner.
This year, Spawn wanted a party for his birthday. He started talking about after his sister's superhero party in March. I wasn't sure what to do for it. His interests are so specific and his friend base is smaller. What kind of party could we have? I need to have a theme.
By July, I figured it out. I wanted to throw him a surprise party!
I also got it in my head that it would be funny for everyone to be in disguise. Funny glasses and fake mustaches started to dominate my Amazon suggestions. And, thought it would be funny to have the day before his birthday since he would not expect it.
Trying to figure out where to go was harder than I thought it would be for a tween party. A home party is always an option but making it fun for a mix of ages is hard. There are places to jump, and places to play video games, there is even a pool that could host a party. None of those options fit his personality. And, we were trying to surprise him so I couldn't ask him for an idea.
Then, like divine intervention, we figured it out. The kids and I did a plane pull fundraiser in July. Every year at this event the Euclid Beach Rocket Car is there, but we never get the opportunity to go for a ride. It was either too hot, or too busy, or we were too late. This year, we were able to go for a ride. My kid was over the moon. The joy he had after that ride was beyond anything I could have imagined for him. He asked if he could have it for his birthday.
I mentioned it in passing to the Hubs and he said, "okay." I'm the one that says no to most things. I'm always afraid of the cost of something. But I called the Euclid Beach Rocket Car company and it wasn't as much as I thought it would be to rent for an hour. In fact, it's cheaper than the bouncy places and video game restaurants. I booked the rocket car.
I was checking things off my list for this party. We had it at our home, the rocket car arrived shortly after he came home, and we made sure not tell his sister. And, we didn't tell his best friend who's mom was in charge of bringing him home. Neither can keep a secret.
Finally, the cake. He wanted a mint chocolate chip ice cream pie. I made it once, several years ago and he still talks about it. An ice cream pie or even cake was not going to happen if we were going to surprise him.
Another first this summer was discovering Krispy Kreme. There is only one in our area and it's 25 minutes away. There is no reason to go out there when we have three doughnut shops in our city. But, it happens to be the Hubs' favorite so I got them for Father's Day. The kids got hooked.
A week from the party, he found out.
It was an innocent mistake. The Hubs thought that the kids were nowhere around him. He had taken them to the movies and thought our Spawn was in the bathroom. So, when his buddy called to see if he could work for him he wasn't expecting Corey to be near. Nor did the Hubs think that Corey would hear that the reason he couldn't work was that it was his surprise party. And, of course, Corey heard.
All those months of planning!
So, I lied to my son. I told him that we'd cancel the surprise party and have everyone over for a family dinner on his birthday.
He believed me.
It awesome.
