How to Throw the Perfect Party

That might be the name of this post if I had thrown the perfect party for Andrew's first birthday. While one guest, bless her heart, was especially generous to say that it was, indeed, the perfect party, I will not presume to say that it was perfect. I will say that it was pretty gosh darn good. That's Southern for "it didn't suck."

Because everyone knows that I blog first and foremost as a public service and not for amusement (insert laughter here), I will offer up this step by step guide on how to throw a pretty gosh darn good party for a one year old.

Step 1: Create a guest list. I did this by emailing everyone within a 50 mile radius and promising them cake. Amazingly enough, 21 people showed up.

Step 2: Brainstorm possible themes. I made a short yet comprehensive list of Andrew's interests: boobies, the Vonage box, the cell phone, the house phone, the camera, Legos, tiny specks of paper on the floor, pulling beards, the dishwasher and, most importantly, boobies. Yes, he is breastfed, but he does not discriminate against any breasts. Big or small, he likes them all. He has been known to leave chocolate hand prints on any who pass within his reach.

Step 3: Dump having a theme. So Andrew's interests didn't really lend themselves to a theme that would be easy to deliver, at least not at a one year old birthday party. Now if we were throwing him a bachelor party, maybe it would be okay to decorate the cupcakes as miniature breasts, but since that's not the case, we opted for the no theme approach.

Step 4: Plan the menu and buy supplies. Mama always said to KISS (keep it simple stupid), so I limited the menu to hot dogs, a cheese ball, potato chips with dip, a veggie tray, fresh salsa and tortilla chips, a cake and 24 cupcakes. When buying supplies, we made sure to make purchases in no less than eight different stores in two different countries. And for added fun, we answered questions in Spanish about how to apply for a visa to the U.S. while our children deliberately ran around in circles. Okay, so Chris helped with the last part.

Step 5: Clean. We spent the week making the house perfect inside and out. I just didn't remember that the wind blows pretty strong up on the hill -- strong enough to blow doors shut unexpectedly while I was outside sweeping. Yes, yes I did, I locked myself out of the house again. It's a problem.

Step 6: Prepare the food. I'm a novice in competitive wifery, so I prepared the food myself but realized my limitations and that nothing beats a mix. Everything would have gone much smoother if only I had remembered to grease the cake pans the first time I baked the cake. However, knowing my ability to screw things up, I had an extra cake mix on hand and did not have a melt down over the time and dollar lost in baking the first cake. Thankfully, the second cake did not fall to pieces when I slid it out of the pan.

Step 7: Decorate. With balloons. One year old babies love balloons. We bought lots of them and sent them home with guests so that our children would not be trying to eat/sit on them for the next three days. Unfortunately, we had more balloons than balloon-loving guests.

Step 8: Hide the silver. Well, we don't actually have any silver, but it is important to note that anything we did not want seen, played with or destroyed was well out of sight and reach of children both young and old. Needless to say, we were not surprised to find a half eaten chocolate cupcake and a giant Star Wars toy inexplicably in Chris's closet the next morning.

Step 9: Nap. I wish that at least one of us had followed Step 9, especially the birthday boy.

Step 10: Welcome guests. It was all down hill from there. The guests were fabulous, the food was delicious, and Andrew was delighted by his party. At least, Andrew seemed delighted as he crawled from person to person, making new friends, tugging on beards and inspecting breasts.  What more could a one year old ask for?

So there you have it-- a pretty gosh darn good party. And I'm exhausted.

Andrew plays in his new sandbox.