EXPAT IN GERMANY: PARENTING | HUMOR

Throwing A Birthday Party For A Toddler? There Is Only One Thing To Remember

What I learned from throwing a winter birthday party for my four-year-old

Foto von Joyce Adams auf Unsplash

“Mommy, Mommy,” his tiny and mighty hands pulled the heavy blanket from over my head to reveal my squinting eyes. “Mommy! Is today my birthday party?”

I was naive in thinking that planning a party for a four-year-old would be a breeze. For his first, second, and third birthday celebrations, his dad and I let him blow out some candles on a cupcake while singing “Happy Birthday.” Now that he was four, we thought it would be fun to throw him a party. One week into planning, I was ready to give up until I overheard him asking our device, “Hey Google, when is my birthday party?”

Damn it.

Following advice I found online, I started the guest list:

• Two children from his kindergarten he talks about almost every day.
• Two of his closest friends from his previous kindergarten — he had recently changed kindergartens. I couldn’t settle the disagreement with the first one (more on that here).

That would be a total of five children including my son. Line under the list…