Birthday Party Advice Needed

[Tigger&Belle]

My son's 6th birthday is today, but we are planning his party for early January. I can't decide how to handle inviting the 2 kids next door. They are 3 years apart in age, with my son smack dab in the middle agewise.

We've always invited both of them to his parties, but I'm questioning that plan. In the past years they've invited him to their DD's parties (the older child) and not to the younger one. This last year my son was invited to their son's birthday party (mostly their extended family, with some of his friends), but not their DD's party. All their parties have been at their house, so it was obvious that a party was going on and that he was not invited.

My son plays with both of the kids. Gets invited over by the boy more often, but when all the kids are playing out front they all play together. My son gets along with both of the kids.

So, I can't decide if I should invite just their son, both of the kids, or talk to their mom about my decision. HELP!

My tendency would be to invite them both without talking to the mom, but then I'm afraid that my son will again be excluded from the girls party this year.

BTW, I do not usually worry about parties that my gets don't get invited to (and my 6yo is the youngest of 4 kids, so "been there, done that"), but this lack of invitation was not something that made sense. She had a boy/girl party and part of it took place in their backyard, so literally right under his nose and his feelings were hurt. I have NEVER asked a parent why my child was not invited to a party, so I am truly not "one of those parents". And the kids do play together a lot, especially in the warmer months.

So, my tendency is to ask the mom how I should proceed, but I don't want to come off upset about my son not being invited to her DD's party. However, if I find out that he won't be invited next spring to hers then that will certainly influence what I do this time around.

And I do understand when girls start inviting only girls, etc, and that would be a totally different story if that had of been the case.

So, what should I do and if I do say something to the mom, what should I say?

 

[robinb]

Why don't you ask your son if he wants to invite both kids and go with that?

 

[barkley]

could it be that the older child (the girl i believe) may have had a boy/girl party but the quests were closer in age to her than your son? there is a big difference between a boy/girl party that is geared to 9/10 year olds vs. 5/6 year olds.

i've given up on trying to balance out who is invited to these events vs. who has invited my kids in the past. i just go with who my kid would enjoy having at their party-they will get to an age soon enough when they start keeping score and deciding who to include or exclude. in fact i would like to write off the entire bday party concept-i spend too much time, money and energy in planning these things only to have most not rsvp, and the one's that do-no show or bring along sibs. that were not invited and in many cases not age appropriate for what has been planned.

best of luck in making your decision.

 

[anewvance]

It seems they have a good relationship and you are neighbors. I'd go ahead and invite them both. Unless you were having it elsewhere and cost per child went up dramatically. JMO.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I think that Jake would want to invite them both.

Barkley, The girl just turned 7yo late last spring, so the invited guests weren't 9-10yo, but more like 6-7yo (with my son being 5 1/2 at the time). I can certainly understand him not being invited if the guests were several years older, but that wasn't the case.

I will probably invite a girl who I take care of, who is 10yo. And I wouldn't expect that he would be invited to her parties of course.

The whole birthday thing does get complicated. Like I'd mentioned, in general I don't keep score, but this was just so obvious and he has brought up several times about not being invited to her party (I said NOTHING about it at the time, hoping that he wouldn't notice...yeah, right ).

Also, even my DH who never would notice or care about this kind of thing has asked me why Jake wasn't invited to this girl's party, so it's not just a protective "mama bear" reaction like moms sometimes get.

The cost really won't go up inviting her. We're hiring a magician and it doesn't matter how many kids we have, that cost is the same. And the magician brings goodies for the kids, so it's just the bag of candy that I will hand out to go with the magician's stuff. And a little more cake and ice cream, but that's nothing.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Oh, and one other thing. I know that these neighbors wouldn't have done anything to slight us on purpose--my older kids babysit for them and they treat us very nicely. And there is a *slight* chance that Jake was invited and the invitation was lost in the mail (yes, they mail it even though it is next door). That did happen with their younger child one time--he invited a neighbor across the street, but they didn't get the invite and therefore didn't come. The did call them during the party and wondered why she wasn't there, which is how they figured out the mix-up. Probably not the case with my son, but it is possible. And another reason for me to take the high road and invite the girl.

 

[DisneyArk]

I think birthday parties are so stressful to plan. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings and I spend a lot of time trying to avoid that.

My sons are 5 and 7. We used to invite a lot of different friends to their parties (friends from sports teams, school, church, the neighborhood etc). The boys loved it, but it was stressful to me that some of the kids did not know anyone else and my child (the birthday boy) was not always able to spend time with each child individually. This year I'm considering only inviting ds's class from school. Maybe that is what your neighbor did.

I know from experience it's difficult for a child to watch a neighbor friend's party from his backyard. I usually explain to my sons that we can't always invite everyone and that the person still likes them, but just wasn't able to invite them. I let my boys invite their friends even if they are not invited to that friend's party.

And I'll just add that my DS7 loves to play with the neighbors (and his brother) who are 5. But there are times when he thinks he is MUCH, MUCH older than they are.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

It sure is hard not hurting feelings! I was debating how many kids to invite from his class and decided on at most half the class. Less, actually. Maybe 8-10 of the class of 23. I don't want a situation where most are invited. Then add in the extras and we'll end up inviting about 18! This year I don't mind because we'll have the magician, but some years that would be impossible.

My older kids are done with the birthday parties, though, unless you count my 12yo's Bat Mitzvah in November.

 

[barkley]

oh boy-i'm still getting "when do i get to have my birthday party" from my daugther (her's was in august)! it's a pain cuz all the kids are out of school, and then by the time we start back everyone is doing sports on the weekends, the holidays roll around... and then it's compounded by her brother's bday in february (which is a great time of year to have one, everyone is available) i think i may end up doing a surpise combo bday celebration for both of them in february-we'll invite both sets of friends (which works out well cuz they share quite a few as well as having friends who are siblings to another's friends). i'll just grab both yugio and princess decorations and we'll have an "eclectic theme"

p.s. always open to ideas of places to hold parties (sorry, chuck e cheese is just too much per kid!)-beyond bowling alley, scate rinks-any other good ideas out there? (i'll pass mine on-if you live in northern california near the jelly belly factory they do the BEST job, and their prices are very reasonable).

 

[Tigger&Belle]

We used to hold yearly parties for our older kids. Then our 3rd came along (now 12yo) and we started with yearly parties, but he hasn't had a party in several years. We had a hard time scheduling them with his sports schedule and by then time we had that schedule (fall baseball) and called places, they were booked up and it just never happened. I kept telling him, "next year" and it actually turned into a joke. last January I brought him to WDW and I told him that trip was for all the parties he missed.

For Jake, he had a simple at home party when he was 4yo and at 5yo we had a couple families over for a birthday lunch (I'd just brought him on a 13 day Orlando trip...). So this is his first "big deal" party and I still couldn't get it together to have on or real near his birthday. But it will only be 2-3 weeks late. Not bad for me!

I bet the Jelly Belly would be a great place for a party. That was such a fun place to visit!

 

[Tigger&Belle]

:And I'll just add that my DS7 loves to play with the neighbors (and his brother) who are 5. But there are times when he thinks he is MUCH, MUCH older than they are.

In general, there can be a big difference between 5 and 7yo's. Of course there's a pretty big difference between my son and the younger boy next door since they have the same age difference that my son has with his older sister. In the case of this 7yo, though, she is extremely immature. She whines, carries on, argues with all adults, etc. My son has babysat her a lot and he also sometimes babysits another neighborhood girl who is the same age. After thos times he always comments on how immature girl #1 is. Hmmm, why am I thinking about inviting her again?

Seriously, though, most firstborn girls are mature, but it really isn't the case with this particular girl. Not that my son is super mature, but he carries himself fairly well.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

So the girl is 7, your son is 6, and the youngest is 5??? Is that right?

So what to do? Invite them if you want to and do not expect anything. I hate all that neighbor party stuff.

Edited to change my answer....

 

[Tigger&Belle]

So the girl is 7, your son is 6, and the youngest is 5??? Is that right?

So what to do? Invite them if you want to and do not expect anything. I hate all that neighbor party stuff.

Edited to change my answer....

The girl is 7 (7 1/2, actually), my son is 6yo, and the neighbor boy will be 5yo this spring.

Hmmm, now I'm wondering what your answer was before the edit! The neighborhood stuff does get dicey for sure.

I'm going to start with talking to my son and asking him who he wants to invite. If he only wants to invite the boy, we'll do that. If he wants to invite them both I suppose we'll do that. Then the question is do I say anything to the mother and if so, what. But I'll first of all see what Jake wants to do--there might not even be an issue if he only wants to invite the boy (not likely I think, but who knows).

 

[The Mystery Machine]

At first I thought that they were 3 years apart (like 6 & 9), instead of 7 1/2, 6, 4.

Weird stuff, huh? I don't envy you right now.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

At first I thought that they were 3 years apart (like 6 & 9), instead of 7 1/2, 6, 4.

Weird stuff, huh? I don't envy you right now.

I try to err on the side of inviting people instead of leaving them off the list. Of course there is a limit to how many I can have, but a couple more don't make a difference.

I remember when my oldest was this age and we also had a magician. Every child who we invited came, so we had 18 kids that were my DD's age, my 3yo and a friend for him and my then newborn (I'm dating myself--that newborn is now 12yo). And this was in our much smaller house. I spelled out everything we were going to be doing at the party and I guess I made it sound so good that everyone came. And, I let the parents know when the magician was going to be there and invited siblings to that part of the party. I was younger then, though.