The Boy Wants a Party

The party celebrating Jackson's first birthday, I'll admit, was mostly for me.  It doesn't take much for the event planner in me to be inspired to throw a party - and what better occasion than your first born child's first birthday.  Truth be told, I was planning that party in my mind long before the calendar required me to do so.

Then he turned two.  I couldn't bear to not throw a party, but going all out again seemed a little over the top.  Especially since the guest list was composed entirely of friends of ours, not Jack's.  So I took advantage of the fact that all three of our birthdays fall in a 10-day stretch of time and had a family celebration. 

We took his third year off from throwing a party and instead devoted the whole day to Jackson and his favorite character - Mickey Mouse.

Which brings us to four.

Actually, Jack's birthday is still nearly 3 months away.  It wasn't even on his radar yet.  But Fletcher, a classmate of Jack's, turns four this weekend.  And Fletcher is having a party.  At the Lawrence Gymnastics Academy.  And the whole class is invited.  They got their very own Cars 2 invitations.  And the envelope had their name on it!  And Jack is excited.

He's been to birthday parties for family and even a few friends before, but they were our friends, too.  Fletcher is his friend which, in Jack's mind, takes this thing to a whole other level.  Besides being super excited for the shindig on Saturday, it's like a light bulb went off in his head:

If Fletcher can have a birthday and bring special invitations to school and invite the whole class to a party just for him...then, holy moly maybe I can too!

And so the boy wants a party.

He drops hints all the time:

"I'm going to bring Buzz Lightyear invitations to all my friends."
"At my party..."
"My friends are going to come to my birfday."
"Mom, I think I want to have a Spidey party."

The tides have turned.  Not only does he actually have his own friends to invite to a party, but he also has a pretty strong opinion about the theme of this event.  And it looks like cartoon characters are where it's at.

So here I am, in mid-September, researching kid-friendly party venues in Lawrence and scouring pinterest for Buzz Lightyear and Spiderman inspiration. 

What choice do I have?  My boy wants a party!

Lucky for him, his event planner Mama is happy to deliver.