Turn up Thursday

missJeanLouise

Hi Ladies 
It's been a while but I wanted to ask some parenting advice from my favorite group of nice, honest people.

My son is turning 5 *tear*. Last year we invited his whole class to his party and it was insane so we weren't going to do that this year. However, he wants about half the class invited. As a more the merrier type person, it feels rude to me to not invite everyone... and I don't want any little kids to feel sad that they got left out. Can y'all share your common sense advice with me? Fwiw, we are having the party at the local splash pad but it does cost money per kid. The party also falls on the Saturday before mid-term break, so people might be traveling but none of the people I have asked so far are. 

Overthinking is my sport,
MJL

ei34

How many kids are in the class?  I think the biggest party I had was 12 kids at my twins' most recent bday party at the town pool, they each invited 6-7 friends and most were around to attend.  Although I never hosted a "whole class" party they were more popular when my kids were around your son's age (can't believe he's almost 5!).  It was never something that appealed to me but my kids have all been invited to them.  As long as you email evites to individual kids separately I think you're fine not inviting everyone (and again, just my opinion, as someone who's never thrown a whole-class party).

My cold is tapering off.  Really glad the week is winding down.

missJeanLouise

@ei34 there are 20ish kids. Not all would come, I am sure. I am just afraid of kids talking about it before or after the fact and some kids feeling left out. But maybe kids don't care, or talk as much as I think.

banana468

I sort of feel like a whole class party needs to be short and without drop offs.  I've attended but never hosted that type.   

DH is now being monitored by the doc for some kind of blister that burst on his foot that burst and appears to be infected making the foot puffy.  He's on an antibiotic now but he woke up today and his face is ever so slightly puffy so...I hope they're doing their thing?  He's camping this weekend with the kids for Scouts so I'm holding out hope that he can still do all the things because in addition to a parent needing to be there he's an assistant den leader.

Currently in a holding pattern w/ the pedi.  I had Chiquita scheduled for her Guardasil and flu vaccine today and Chiquito for the flu but they cancelled due to illness.  The issue is that now w/ Chiquita's biologic suppressing the immune system she has to receive vaccines about 10 days before or after the infusion.    

missJeanLouise

@banana468 it's 2 hours with no drop offs.

Hope your H feels better soon. Good luck with the kids 

charlotte989875

M has been invited to two all class parties and it worked, no one was left off but a lot of people didn’t show. I think it’s pretty common in our area to just invite everyone. Although my BFF with twin six year olds refuses to because her girls are in separate classes so she’s not hosting 40 kids. We also didn’t invite any kids from his class to his party (opted just for family + our friends) but probably will next year.  

charlotte989875

I’m furious at work and at myself. I had a big meeting for first thing this morning so I stayed up late working on the data and analysis only for my boss to push it out, again. I know it was my choice to do the work and get it done, but he does this shit a lot; says things are really important, asks for meetings to review in detail, then cancels or whatever. It drives me crazy and feels super disrespectful. 

climbingsingle

Man, that's so hard with little kid parties. I'd say because it's a splash pad type thing and you're paying per kid (I assume not cheap!) I think it's OK to only invite his close friends. 

Mostly SSDD. I slept like shit last night - felt like I was awake every hour. So today is most definitely going to drag. 

levioosa

My gut is that if half of the kids are invited you should invite all to avoid hurt feelings and to avoid potential drama. 

Work was absolute hell yesterday. That’s what I get for saying out loud my day was going well. I had to go talk to another departments supervisor because they were pulling some outrageous shenanigans. I’m dreading the next two days. H and I also got into a little tiff because he didn’t want to hear about anything stressful because he was so anxious and close to a panic attack. I get it. Things are hard for him, but when do I get to vent about my day and have a support person? 

Otherwise SSDD. I’m debating hike vs swimming today for my work out. The only thing is I really hate the gym pool and being in public to swim. But it would be good cross training and I’m pretty sore. 

mrsconn23

charlotte989875 said:

I’m furious at work and at myself. I had a big meeting for first thing this morning so I stayed up late working on the data and analysis only for my boss to push it out, again. I know it was my choice to do the work and get it done, but he does this shit a lot; says things are really important, asks for meetings to review in detail, then cancels or whatever. It drives me crazy and feels super disrespectful. 

My director does that shit.  It's infuriating!  I'm sorry.  

mrsconn23

Hi, I'm here.  It's been a damn week and I can't believe it's only Thursday. 

I'm so blah recently.  Between work and home, there's so much going on and I want to do none of it.  

I'm going to post Prudie here in a few.  

CharmedPam

Nice to see you @missJeanLouise! I don’t have kids so keep that in mind.
growing up we just invited my friends from class.  However I’m seeing my bro be invited to all kids parties and hosting all kids parties.  I think around 20ish too.  But he lives in a small town, so….
grrrr @charlotte989875 that is annoying!

I woke up at 3:40 this morning. I’m dragging.  3:40 is to late to take an ambien but to early to stay awake. I did a quick 30 min walk which put me back to sleep but I’m still off kilter. 

I get my hair extensions raised today.  Woohoo! That’s “haircut and style” speak for people who don’t need the extra help like I do.  It’s my hair day. Then tomorrow off to see the family. I have yet to buy my bro his bday gift so I have one more place to call to see if they have it, otherwise he gets a birthday card with a picture of it since delivery takes a month. 

MissKittyDanger

@missJeanLouise i'm not a person who wants a whole lot of kids at the bday party.
BK has had 1 party with kids and because of location we kept small.
Next year it'll be bigger - but we still don't do full class. That's expensive.

Since BK is a May baby, we make a note who she talks about, where she's been invited etc.
I've already started a list lol
That being said, next year bday party is at the giant indoor jungle gym - I will be purchasing those "loop" earbuds because the sensory overload when doing drop off is just insane.

MissKittyDanger

BK is back at school and of course today starts our crazy time.
Adding in, I have to leave at 2:30 to pick her up and bring her back to the office because M has a work thing {he's already annoyed about that - completely separate thing} and after work BK and I are meeting my mum for dinner  

climbingsingle

@charlotte989875 my old bosses did that too. Constantly pushing back or straight up canceling meetings. I one time had to jump on a call with the Yankees organization regarding custom printed items because one owner decided he couldn't join the call 5 minutes before it started. And the other one would constantly agree to vendor meetings w/out telling me, only to have them show up and he wasn't even in the office. So annoying. I feel your pain! 

missJeanLouise

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. DS has only been in school for a month so there haven't been any other parties that we know of. We obviously don't have any family around and a lot of our friends with kids moved a while ago. This is DS's first year at this school so we don't have any history with people. I don't really care about that, I just don't want little kids feelings to be hurt. I haven't heard anyone mention their kid being upset about not being invited to a party though, so I will take that as a good sign.

short+sassy

@missJeanLouise, good to hear from you again!  I feel like 50% of the class is right at that line where it's okay etiquette-wise, but there are still going to be some hurt feelings.  Because that is still a lot of kids who will know and talk about it and a lot of kids who weren't invited.  If it were me, I'd opt to limit it to maybe 5-6 of his closest friends.  But I also don't think you're doing anything wrong if you want to invite everyone he wants there, ie about half the class.  He's going to have a lot fun, either way!

When I was in elementary school, it was pretty common to have an all class invited birthday party.  But it was always at someone's house or a park, so food and little kid goodie bags were the only costs.

@banana468, I hope your DH's infection gets better quickly.  So weird how something so minor like that can happen and turn into a much bigger deal.

@charlotte989875, sorry that happened!  I had a boss years ago who had a short attention span.  He would get really hyped up about whatever his newest idea was.  Have me do all kinds of research, including meeting vendors.  And then lose interest when it was time to make a decision.  While the vendors I met with keep calling me for an update, ugh.  Sometimes he'd forget what he asked for, until I presented him with the info I found.  It was a small company and he was the owner.

@levioosa, I hope the next two days are not as bad as you are thinking.

My crazy mornings this week!  Tuesday was my first day back from vacation, so I was already grumpy.  I get out to my car and the battery was dead!  Come on!  Very Murphy's Law.  My H was great and got a new battery for me while I was at work, so I was back up and running for Wednesday.  It was a 7-year old battery, so nice that it lasted longer than average.  But the last thing I wanted to do after a big vacation expense was spend $220 on my car!

I haven't been sleeping well this week and actually slept through my alarm this morning.  I was an hour late for work and am also feeling especially unmotivated.  Phew, so glad tomorrow is Friday.  I need the weekend to get back into the swing of things.

kerbohl

@missJeanLouise I've never understood these huge kid parties, so I'm with the whole 5-7 of the closest friends.  But it does depend on class sizes, lol.  Even half a class sounds like a lot of kids.  It's hard to navigate this kind of thing though, I get that.  You don't want sad kids, but they do get sad at the drop of a hat sometimes.

@charlotte989875 That happens to me too, and it is UBER annoying.  I would be seething at work.  I have that for training - they'll be all "oh, we have to get this trained out next week" and I rush to get everything ready and then someone will be all "oh, it has to wait a week".  So hard to plan things!

October is going to be insane for me at work, but mostly because I scheduled some vacation days to tour my cousin when she is visiting from the Netherlands.  And then work decided to double book me for training but .... too bad, I've got vacation and this is your fault for bad scheduling.  So those two things you needed me to deal with are things you have to deal with now, bwahaha!  It will probably come back to bite me though.

VarunaTT

I am in a super crappy mood. It's my own fault and I'll get through it but ugh. However, seeing The Mummy tonight (the OG, not that remake travesty) and I'm super excited about that.  Otherwise, SSDD.

levioosa

@VarunaTT I was about to get offended when I thought you were dissing the Brenden Fraser one in favor of the Boris Karloff one, then I realized you were talking about the Tom Cruise remake (I think?). 

VarunaTT

levioosa said:

@VarunaTT I was about to get offended when I thought you were dissing the Brenden Fraser one in favor of the Boris Karloff one, then I realized you were talking about the Tom Cruise remake (I think?).

SITB: Oops!  Yes, you are correct.

ILoveBeachMusic

@missJeanLouise, I think inviting half the class is fine. I never invited a ton of kids to my kids parties - just their closest friends. We never distributed invites at school. Of course this was all many years ago. DD's twins are in different classes at school (kindergarten). A couple of weeks ago one twin was invited to a birthday party. The twins are on the same soccer team with the birthday child. When the mother found out she said the twin not in the class could come if he wanted. DD thanked her but declined saying they are going to have to get use to not being invited to things. As long as your DS doesn't make a big deal of the party at school, I think that is a good lesson to learn.

ILoveBeachMusic

Worked out this morning then went shopping for some new jeans. I ended up getting a black pair of skinny and a denim pair of wide leg. I've never worn wide leg but thought I would give them a try. I have fairly thin legs but carry weight in my middle. I think they looked good. I also got a fall print long sleeve t-shirt. I need to but more pattern in my shirts and not be so boring.

MyNameIsNot

@missJeanLouise - When we were that age, the party would just be all the girls or boys in our class, which would give you about half the class. I don't know if that's still a thing though. 

I went into the office for no reason again today and am still annoyed that it's a thing. Why do I need to drive all the way downtown so that I can sit at a desk in a cold room and be on Teams calls all day? Anyway, I did my hair so I'm going to happy hour. 

CharmedPam

MyNameIsNot said:

@missJeanLouise - When we were that age, the party would just be all the girls or boys in our class, which would give you about half the class. I don't know if that's still a thing though. 

I went into the office for no reason again today and am still annoyed that it's a thing. Why do I need to drive all the way downtown so that I can sit at a desk in a cold room and be on Teams calls all day? Anyway, I did my hair so I'm going to happy hour. 

There’s no better reason to!  I never do my hair but I say that about putting my face on. 

MobKaz

No drop off's around here usually means parents may have to bring siblings, depending on the circumstance.  We tend to invite friends the kids actually engage with, and leave wiggle room for siblings of invited guests.

Regardless, kids this age tend to live in the moment.  A Saturday party at this age is fairly out of mind by Monday.