Can I have a rose? My sleep paralysis demon comes in the form of 23 six year olds at a birthday party.
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I can still hear their little voices chanting in my head...can IIIII have a roooose? Scarier than any haunted house sound effect these kids could have sent shivers down the spines of the heartiest of souls.
I don't think anyone likes kid's birthday parties. I'm not even sure the kids like them sometimes. We have to do them though and it was my daughter's 6th birthday. We got her a big cake with roses on it and balloons and all the fun stuff. We had the party at a park because I'm not a crazy person who would allow 23 sugared up children into my home on a Saturday to wreak havoc. The worst part of throwing a birthday party is most parents just drop the kids off and run. They don't stay. They leave them to the parent of the birthday kid to take care of. These kids know they can get away with pretty much anything because what are you going to do? You have a party to throw. You can't punish them. They aren't your kids. Give them some cake and pizza, put on Bluey songs and you have a recipe for some absolutely feral humans. No sane person has a party at their own home. But despite my best efforts I still couldn't escape the curse of kid's birthday party.
Mistake number one: I got a piñata because I thought that might be fun and being an absolute idiot I also thought it would be a great idea to put little fun toys in there instead of candy because they are already having cake, who needs even more sugar? I got a variety of small squish toys, keychains, little cheap bracelets...you know just some random things that weren't too pricey that I thought each kid would be excited to get. Like "oh I got a Barbie scrunchie!" "I got a unicorn bracelet" "yay we all got different fun things!" We set up the piñata and lined up the kids. Some younger siblings kept wandering dangerously close as the girls started whacking away and of course they got whacked a few times so there were tears already starting from the little ones. The piñata finally broke open and they all scrambled to get the prizes. As they started lining their pockets with toys some kids weren't getting a toy, some kids starting fighting over toys, then the tears started. From EVERYONE. It was a tornado of tears. They cried because they didn't get what they wanted, or they got nothing, or they got too many things and had to give some up or they got trampled like someone running into Wal-Mart on Black Friday for a 60 inch tv deal. It was chaos. I had to do something. So I decided it was cake time. Nothing shuts up a crying kid like the promise of cake.
I yelled cake time! And we ran over to the covered pavilion at the park to light the candles and forget that the last 8 minutes ever happened. I pulled out my daughters chocolate iced cake with red roses - it had 3 huge roses and about 8 smaller and less impressive rose buds. My daughter blew out the candles and everyone was happy. Yay! Party saved. I started to cut the cake and my daughter asks for a slice with a rose (meaning one of 3 big roses) and I say of course birthday girl. I cut her slice and start cutting more slices and I hear another little voice say "can I have a rose?" then another "can I have a rose" Well ok guys there's only a few maybe we can cut into the rose...then another and another. They start literally chanting in unison. Then more join in. I start to sweat. I already made these kids cry once I can't handle them all crying again. I am looking at the 2 roses and the ravenous 22 kids thinking how the hell am I going to do this. "How about a little rose?" "I want a big rose" "she got a big rose" "no fair" I start to cut the big rose into a smaller rose. And frantically start plating cake and handing to kids. Listen you got cake! It's all good cake! It all has good frosting! At this point I'm almost in tears. My husband meanwhile is chatting with one of the dads and laughing at the Lord of Flies mentality that has taken over the cake cutting. "Can IIIIII have a roooooose" It sends me into a panic to this day.
The (no pun intended) icing on the cake was my older son's friend went into the Port-o-potty and (don't ask why because I have explanation why kids do things) LICKED THE URINAL PUCK ON A DARE. yes. You read that correctly. The boys come running away from the Port-o-potty laughing hysterically and I knew that something was up. When kids are tiny, giggles are cute and sweet but when they get older and it usually means they just did something that would render them social pariahs if they were adults so I knew it was going to be bad news. The boy, whose name will remain anonymous just in case he decides to run for office one day and this story comes back to haunt him, tried to also look amused but also looked nauseous. I gave him water to swish his mouth out and asked the dumbest question on Earth "why did you do that?" to which I got a shrug and more laughter from all the boys. I assumed he was getting money or something from the other boys for it or something but no, just did it because *shrug* it would be funny? Boys are animals.
I thought at least this can't get any worse. The party's almost over I can do this. I'll just clean up. *side note* those little jerks who almost murdered me for frosting left half their cake and frosting on their plates...I even found one of the precious roses barely touched. le sigh* I was thirsty and wanted to sit for a second so I look for the sparkling water. I can't find it. I bought 2 Costco sized cases of water there's no way we drank it all? Where could it be? I'm looking around and I hear more of that raucous evil laughter coming from a different part of the park. Then I heard fighting which turned into tears so of course I head over. Apparently while I was tending to the urinal licker some of the kids had absconded with a case of sparkling water, went up on the top of this bridge in the park, shook the cans up and started to slam them down on the pavement below exploding them which not only left shards of can everywhere and scared the crap out of one of the kids when one exploded right next to them they also had exploded the entire case of water off the bridge. Literally 30 cans of sparkling water everywhere. That's when parents started to show up.
They roll up to shards of cans and trash everywhere, kids crying, yelling...you know normal birthday party things. I run over to give them their party favor bags before they leave and pretend like I have it all under control to the parents. I lie to all of them. "they had a great time" "yeah they were very good" One kid who had literally cried at least 3 times turns around to me as she's leaving and gives me a big hug and says "that was the best party ever! I had so much fun!"
I guess we trauma bonded.
Every birthday when it's time to cut the cake I still hear the faint sounds of the chanting children....
CAN I HAVE A ROSE? 🌹