The whole story

I figured I'd actually write out the whole story of Timmy's birthday party which I eluded to yesterday in my Not Me post.

Quick back story, back in March we attended a dinner auction at our church. I had set aside a certain amount of money and had intended to bid on a birthday package for each of the boys. I figured since Timmy had started school he'd want to be able to have a 'friend' party instead of the typical blended family party we've done in the past. I was 100% successful in acquiring the two packages. We ended up with one at Rink Side sport which would include ice skating and lazer tag, as well as arcade games and one at Peoples Choice which would be for mini golf and games. I figured the activities at Rink Side would be better suited for a little older kids so Timmy's party would be there. I made up invitations and had Timmy figure out who he'd like to invite from school. He came up with 8 kids. Since we would have to pay for a minimum of 6 I thought 8 was a great number figuring half of the kids we invited probably wouldn't be able to come. So he handed out his invites a couple weeks early. A week before the party the RSVP date rolled around and I hadn't gotten a single call. And we didn't have any way to contact the parents. I saw the one parent we did know from picking their child up and asked her about it and was told her son was with his father that weekend so she'd given him the invite! So we had no idea who would be coming. Then Timmy ends up sick, on the Wednesday before his Bday we went to the Dr and found out he (and Johnny) had Strep. So we got an Rx and instructions that he needed to stay home from school the following day as well but could go back Friday. But they didn't have school Friday do to Conferences. So there wasn't even a chance to send another note home to the parents or anything. So we just crossed out fingers and HOPED and PRAYED someone would be there.

Cut to Sunday, we get up early to get to church (after Tom and I were out until 1:30am at a fundraiser) and leave straight from church to Rink side. There we spent about an hour going around and around trying to figure out who if anyone would go ice skating. Finally Tom grab some skates and tried taking the boys out. he took each of them around the rink once. But between his instability and theirs hanging on him, he was just to sore to do more. So we got drinks and snacks and tried to kill another TWO hours before his official party time. At 3pm we checked in with out "party host" and not a single guest in site. A table set for ten kids with just Timmy and Johnny to fill it. But not the slightest complaint from Timmy. We were given our tokens and I took the two of them to play games while Tom and Bryan sat with Renee and baby Josie. (Thanks again Renee for hangin' with us and babysitting). After about 40 minutes our host came to get us to come back to the table for Cupcakes...still just Timmy and Johnny. But Timmy didn't seem to care, all he wanted was to be able to open the present we'd brought to be able to confirm that he'd gotten the gift he'd be hoping for for months, Blendy Pens. So we let him open it up and his smile got even bigger. After that they were able to play lazer tag. After getting instructions and being geared up Timmy and Tom were only in the game for a couple minutes before Timmy thought he was going to be sick... Could anything else possibly go wrong?? He ended up being fine and then got a chance to hope int he "fun machine." That's one of those phone book looking things where air blows stuff around and they have to try to grab and hold on to as much as they can in a minute. In this case its little pieces of paper with numbers on it and whatever your total is, they give the child that many tickets to redeem at their prize counter. Timmy caught papers totally 500, but the party host felt very bad for him so he wrote down that he'd caught 1250. By this time it was almost 4:30 and the babies had had enough excitement for one day. SO I left the remaining tokens and the two big boys with Tom to play more games. It was really all sort of depressing. But Tom said on their way home Timmy told him Thank You and that he loved his birthday and he'd had a lot of fun. It makes me sooo proud that he had such a great attitude. For all our rough patches he really is a wonderful kids with an amazing spirit. But in some weird way, his appreciation of the "crappy" day makes me feel even a little more guilty for not being able to have made it a better one.