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Throwing a Birthday Bash for My Boy Who’s Still Finding His Tribe
Friendships, quirks, and birthday chaos in a small house.
It’s my little guy’s 7th birthday tomorrow, and he’s celebrating it in a few days. It’s his first school year — he only started in September — and it’s been an adjustment. Before that, he went to a forest kindergarten out of the city. Lovely as it was, it didn’t exactly help him build a local social circle.
Fast forward a few months, and he’s managed to make a few friends — not loads, but some. He usually plays with one boy, sometimes with a group of four. For his birthday party, he decided to invite just three friends. Perfect, I thought. Four boys in total. Manageable. Ideal for our small house in the middle of winter, when you can’t exactly boot them into the garden to burn off energy.
(Note to self: Make a scavenger hunt to get them outside)
Our eldest, who’s 9, designed the invitations in Canva. They were ridiculously cute, and I added the important details, like date and time. My 7-year-old proudly wrote his friends’ names on the back and took the invitations to school like a little postman.
The waiting game
The first RSVP arrived after a couple of days. It was a voice message from the mum of his…