Birthday Party Realities II

1. If you are going to plan a birthday party, if at all possible try to stay away from the one weekend of the winter when a major storm hits. Using the excuse of it being March does not cut it here in WNY.
   
2. If that's not possible, just reschedule and move on.


3. At least the extra time gives you more time to clean the house.
   
4. Which can be a bad thing. All children at the party fall on your kitchen floor about 10 times. This has nothing to do with the fact that they are playing chase, because they do that every day. It is because the floor is way too clean -- there is no dirt to keep them stuck down.


5. So in the interest of safety, you have to invoke rule #1 from here and spill heavy whipping cream all over said floor. Naturally, in full view of all the guests. Try to swear quietly.
   
6. Thank goodness you have another pint hidden in the back of the fridge because the birthday boy likes to put the heavy cream in his cereal and to hell with being lactose intolerant! but send said birthday boy to the store for 2 cans of "fake" whipped cream just in case. Now you have 2 full cans of fake whipped cream just hanging around because there is no more dessert to eat them with.


7. And speaking of dessert, if one cake is good, then 2 are better. And a pie, and banana bread, and what the heck, put some cookies out too. And some berries for the cheesecake. And the whipped cream. Worry that you are an overachiever or channeling your mother who had to feed 12 people 3x a day. But notice that there were very few leftovers so either you are a perfect party planner or your guests are all just sugar addicts and will be buzzing around at 3 a.m. cursing you. At least the coffee was decaf.
   
8. If you are going to put 51 candles (because you need 1 extra for good luck) on a small cake, you had better be sure the birthday boy is in the room and the guests are ready to sing right then. The flames from 51 candles get pretty high! The children will be highly entertained by this and want to know if the smoke alarm will go off and if it does will everyone have to go outside and stand in the snow? The heat from all those flames will also make the wax candles melt extremely fast. The cute cake will not be so cute anymore after you pick all the wax from its icing, but it will still taste good.
   
9. If you think chocolate is a good gift for the birthday boy, everyone else will too. Fortunately, in this case he does not mind duplicates at all.
   
10. If you make a cute "50 Things We Love About You" book for the birthday boy, realize that all the party guests will read it before he gets a chance to. Which ended up being ok too.