Party Central
Feb. 1st, 2004 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojSo, the par-tay.
In attendance were:
Adding the two birthday boys, we had 12 children, ages 4-9. 7 boys, 5 girls.
Last year, we had 'stations' - the boys' bedroom had lego, castles, and trains, our bedroom had art & books, and the computer room had the computers. And the children went from one station to another, were remarkably quiet (relatively speaking) and had a lot of fun.
This year, we did the same thing, except there were no trains in the boys' bedroom and there were bionicles in the computer room. And it started out fairly orderly.
And then the battles began.
And boy, did they have fun. They ran from one room to another and waved things at each other and yelled and threatened and (occasionally) shrieked and got into boys v. girls and staked out their territories (our room was the girls' room, the boys' room was... well, the boys' room). And then we had a short break for dinner: pizza, hot dogs, and assorted veggies, drinks. They trooped downstairs, ate like lumberjacks, then raced back upstairs to pick up where they'd left off, only louder. This time they also had spies and ultimatums and truces and strategies. Also a bit more roughness, so Andrew (one of the dads) and I parked ourselves in the upstairs hall to make sure nobody got hurt. The battle swirled around us almost unchecked.
At some point Beth (one of the moms) started to make balloon animals, but the kids quickly realized that if you took a doggie's head apart, the balloon looked like a sword. A curvy one. A scimitar!!
And oh, what great joy that was. Scimitars and pillow-shields, and all sorts of fun. One kid looked at his balloon animal (don't know what it was supposed to be, but it had two handles), and declared it to be a nunchuck (sp?). So then everybody wanted one. Beth was kept very busy at her weapon factory.
The funniest thing was watching the girls through all of this. We thought they'd be somewhat taken aback by all the yelling and attacking, but they were actually leading the charges. Picking up toy drills and declaring them to be lasers, strategizing and defending and declaring victories and all that fun stuff.
I know that there's a lot of reasons why kids play-fight - it's not just about glorifying violence, it's also about learning competition and cooperation, and exercising their bodies and their imaginations, blah blah blah. However, most of the time it really bothers me to see kids pretending to kill each other.
But for some reason I was pretty happy with the party. I think it was because they were all so into it, having so much fun, not even being hostile about the boys v. girls thing. There was at least as much laughter and jokes as threats and shouts. They were all sweaty and exhausted and grinning from ear to ear. I think they ran for about three hours, punctuated only by dinner, the truce, and a short cake break. Occasionally some kids would drop out for a bit to play with lego or play a computer game while battle continued to rage around them.
Near the end of the night, one of them discovered that the TV in our bedroom actually works, and the last twenty minutes of the party were mostly pretty quiet, as parents came to pick up their kids and the ones that were left mostly played in the computer room or stared at the TV rather blankly, utterly spent.
Our house looked like a disaster area by the time everyone left. Imaginext sets strewn all over the kids' bedroom, books piled all over our bedroom, Justin's play food scattered all over the house, bionicles in various states of disrepair...
It was a great party :)
In attendance were:
- Noah & Oscar, 6 & 4, and mom Monique
- Francisca, 7, and parents Ale & Andrew
- Stephan, 6, and parents Beth & Dan
- Nicole & Laura, 8 & 4
- Matthew, 7
- Khoi, 7
- Marta & Anya, 9 & 4
Adding the two birthday boys, we had 12 children, ages 4-9. 7 boys, 5 girls.
Last year, we had 'stations' - the boys' bedroom had lego, castles, and trains, our bedroom had art & books, and the computer room had the computers. And the children went from one station to another, were remarkably quiet (relatively speaking) and had a lot of fun.
This year, we did the same thing, except there were no trains in the boys' bedroom and there were bionicles in the computer room. And it started out fairly orderly.
And then the battles began.
And boy, did they have fun. They ran from one room to another and waved things at each other and yelled and threatened and (occasionally) shrieked and got into boys v. girls and staked out their territories (our room was the girls' room, the boys' room was... well, the boys' room). And then we had a short break for dinner: pizza, hot dogs, and assorted veggies, drinks. They trooped downstairs, ate like lumberjacks, then raced back upstairs to pick up where they'd left off, only louder. This time they also had spies and ultimatums and truces and strategies. Also a bit more roughness, so Andrew (one of the dads) and I parked ourselves in the upstairs hall to make sure nobody got hurt. The battle swirled around us almost unchecked.
At some point Beth (one of the moms) started to make balloon animals, but the kids quickly realized that if you took a doggie's head apart, the balloon looked like a sword. A curvy one. A scimitar!!
And oh, what great joy that was. Scimitars and pillow-shields, and all sorts of fun. One kid looked at his balloon animal (don't know what it was supposed to be, but it had two handles), and declared it to be a nunchuck (sp?). So then everybody wanted one. Beth was kept very busy at her weapon factory.
The funniest thing was watching the girls through all of this. We thought they'd be somewhat taken aback by all the yelling and attacking, but they were actually leading the charges. Picking up toy drills and declaring them to be lasers, strategizing and defending and declaring victories and all that fun stuff.
I know that there's a lot of reasons why kids play-fight - it's not just about glorifying violence, it's also about learning competition and cooperation, and exercising their bodies and their imaginations, blah blah blah. However, most of the time it really bothers me to see kids pretending to kill each other.
But for some reason I was pretty happy with the party. I think it was because they were all so into it, having so much fun, not even being hostile about the boys v. girls thing. There was at least as much laughter and jokes as threats and shouts. They were all sweaty and exhausted and grinning from ear to ear. I think they ran for about three hours, punctuated only by dinner, the truce, and a short cake break. Occasionally some kids would drop out for a bit to play with lego or play a computer game while battle continued to rage around them.
Near the end of the night, one of them discovered that the TV in our bedroom actually works, and the last twenty minutes of the party were mostly pretty quiet, as parents came to pick up their kids and the ones that were left mostly played in the computer room or stared at the TV rather blankly, utterly spent.
Our house looked like a disaster area by the time everyone left. Imaginext sets strewn all over the kids' bedroom, books piled all over our bedroom, Justin's play food scattered all over the house, bionicles in various states of disrepair...
It was a great party :)
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-01 03:52 pm (UTC)Gloria Steinem would be proud. :-)
Sounds like you throw one hell of a party
no subject
Date: 2004-02-01 07:21 pm (UTC)Little girls after my own heart. :) 'course, I would've been holding a doll in one hand and a weapon in the other.
Sounds like a terrific party. I bet your boys had a blast.