No More Birthday Party Madness for me!

I spent the better part of an hour after a toe ring.

Not mine. My five years. They received as a reward for showing up at a birthday party last Saturday: a cost-effective, easy to lose, and yet oh so important accessory.

As annoying as I know that I want to look for him, I can only angry with Mum Birthday Party. It is their eldest son. She has not yet realized the children can adapt well without becoming productive adults annualover-the-top Martha Stewart-inspired holiday Clearing Bank Account - the peak of the wisdom of parents.

I do not remember such an over-the-top things to do, when I was a child. Maybe I just had the wrong friends. Or lived in the wrong neighborhood. Or just that he was not paying attention.

The truth is that I have always been more interested in the pursuit of someone else's home as instructions carefully Adults'.

Today you can not escape the idea that every child deservesa big party every year. With a great theme, great food and a job that belongs to an art museum. While we are, how bout 'a zoo? And you prefer to have a stellar gift bag for children who have come.

That's right. Everyone gets a gift!

I have friends who built a mini water park in their backyard, and others who pay a small fortune to rent the rooms had to play.

I'm guilty, too. I have lessons with crepe paper and tape to stay in the pastPseudo-castle. I hosted a dinner in my cowboy outdoor fireplace and rented an Olympic swimming pool. I was an American Idol Party American Idol is still there.

My first daughter, the third anniversary included a "make-your-own-pizza-grill-bar, where - thanks to my fantastic logistical planning - every child was able to create their own pizza, as you like! That , until most of it fell on my living room carpet on the way to the terrace, where my husband, obeyRule of five seconds would be selected and reorganize their decorations and throw the pizza on the grill. He has managed all this torrential rain between cases that were not in the forecast do.

A month after the party out, the Gourmet magazine an adult version of the party itself. It is also how people looked a lot more fun.

My party homemade ice cream was a big hit with everyone except my husband, who naively agreed to help me, the cones the night before. It was discoveredRoles of the cones is much more complicated than it looks. You must do it as long as there are, and my husband did not get a good idea to burn your fingers for the cause of gourmet cuisine to a birthday party. I'm pretty sure that he hid the recipe for it.

Another time I made a clown. That was the day I met some children have an aversion to clowns. A dislike of it screaming, biting, hitting can turn, connected party guests disgusting. At the same party, Ilearned some mothers come to birthday parties of children, not to see his children, but to visit with other mothers. And some mothers are so in adult conversation, she dives completely unaware that their child clown-fear is having a complete emotional collapse, causing injury to some poor clown, and basically ruin the party for any other guest.

I cringe a little thought, can always be a child emotionally scarred because of this party, but at leastIt's not like the scar from the seam of her husband, my friend was at his club single (and only) child party, courtesy of a fellow party-goers with a toy golf course.

Then my mother-in-law end up with birthday parties, cold turkey.

I'm not ready to completely shut down my business party. Because while I remember I grew up anywhere in over-the-top, I have some sweet photos of me and making friends from childhood, who have funny hats and play standardBirthday Party Games. And even if I smoked a lot after planning the party after the incident clown, children, to celebrate the birthdays of my children have never asked why do not we go on an inflatable slide or a rock band.

Room and not an outsider clown feared social situation has not even been the subject of our rules: not to travel.

I have a few rules too. No party favors can not eat. (Chocolate is disappearing before your child receivesHome, and there are no small parts to break or lose.)

Also serve as finger food at room temperature. Do everything ahead of time.

And please do not toe rings Teeny Tiny.