So what do you do for a six year old kindergarten girl that hasn't been done before? A pony party! We had the party at the Jester Park Equestrian Center and got so lucky with a gorgeous, 75 degree day in November. There was some drama leading up to the party, as the facility was insistent that it would only allow ten children to ride the ponies. I explained to the person handling the reservation that I did not want to exclude any of the girls in the class from being invited to the party, and there were 12. The woman was unmoved. If you invite more, she said, only ten will ride. I had gotten the party reservation only ten days in advance due to someone else's cancellation, so I figured the odds were slim that more than 7 or 8 girls tops would come with such short notice. Um, wrong. Ten of the 12 who were invited RSVP'ed to come. Adding Julia, we had eleven. I called repeatedly to try to speak with someone, but the phone line just maddeningly rolls to voicemail. Over and over again. Finally, on the morning of the party, Julia and I drove up to the facility to try to talk with someone. And they were insistent that one person could not ride. When I asked why, they said that it is too hard on the ponies and they did not have enough staff to accommodate one extra rider. I pulled out my best lawyer negotiation skills, offering to have the girls ride in two groups for half as long or even paying extra for Julia to ride before or after the party. No dice. The woman who tried to explain her position to me said "surely you understand why we cannot accommodate this." My response: "not really, to be honest."
I explained to Julia that as the host of the party, her job was to make sure that everyone had a good time and be gracious enough to allow the others to ride and to give up her chance to ride. For the first two minutes after she heard the news, I told her she could take pictures of her friends riding the ponies and she was reluctantly considering it. I promised I would sign her up for riding lessons instead. At one point, she said she would agree not to ride but only if I paid her ten dollars. I think she thought I would balk at what she perceived to be a very high dollar amount, but when I readily agreed in my desperation to smooth things over (not something I am proud of), she backed out of the deal. And the more she thought about it, the madder she got, and she. was. not. having. it. I have to say that I was sympathetic to the idea that it would be hard for a six year old to watch everyone else ride and not have the fun. Especially when it is her own birthday party. I remember when I was eight I had an ice skating birthday party that was magical to me. I cannot imagine how I would have felt about it if I had been forced to sit in the stands watching my friends skate. Julia was angry at me for excluding her from her own birthday party and I was kicking myself for turning what should have been a wonderful day into something that was looking pretty awful.
After hours of sobbing and her insistence that she would not go to her own party, I finally was able to reach someone on the phone who agreed to call her supervisor for an exception. The supervisor called and made an accommodation and all was right with the world again. And after all of that, one of the girls who RSVP'ed did not show up and we only had ten anyway. After the party, I saw that I had missed a text from her mom the night before saying she wouldn't be there. No doubt it came in while the boys were playing a game on my phone and they just dismissed it. Pass the wine, please.
But after seeing the ten smiling faces at the party and how much fun the girls had together, all of the planning and the drama fades away and it becomes worth it to me to go through the hassle for the wonderful memories. My girl greeted her new kindergarten friends with giant hugs and a "Howdy!" (her own idea about the appropriate greetings for guests at a cowgirl-themed birthday party.) The girls colored patiently on the coloring sheets I had printed to bring as time fillers for the beginning of the party while everyone arrived (a little trick I learned around birthday party #5 or so; it worked much better with this group of kindergarten girls than it ever did for their brothers and their friends at the same age.) The girls rode the ponies, groomed the ponies and did a pony craft. Julia was so proud to be able to lead the line to ride the ponies and chose one of the biggest, Beans, as her mount. She happily rode him around the ring, urging him to go around the cones and patting him when he complied.
In terms of presents, it was Shopkins, Shopkins and more Shopkins, much to Julia's delight. Although when I asked her what her favorite part about the party was, she said it was getting a Barbie mermaid doll. Ah, the allure of mermaids is powerful. Maybe the idea for a (smaller!) birthday party next year? At the end of the party, without any prompting, Julia stood up on her chair and announced to all of the guests: "Excuse me, I have something to say! Thank you so much for coming to my party! I had a wonderful time." A natural performer, that one. And it made six seem so grown up.
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