Birthday Party Indecision

I started planning our little middle’s fifth birthday party the other day. In general, I try to bestow some autonomy on my sons when it comes to choosing a party theme. This time, however, I’ve encountered some difficulties. At first, my son wanted an Indiana Jones party. This quickly morphed to a Transformers birthday theme. I decided to buy the party supplies before he changed his mind a third time.

We trekked over to Party City. No Transformers to be found. Bummer. He despondently picked up his GameBoy, at which time he exclaimed, “Pokemon! I want a Pokemon party!” Our boys are big fans of their video games. What to do? I really wanted him to choose his own theme, but we weren’t making any headway…

I decided to go in a completely different direction. Recently, I learned that if you make a donation to our local volunteer firestation, they will drive one of their big fire engines to your birthday party. The firemen will also bring hats and coloring books for the party guests. Here’s the real treat… The fire engine arrives at the party with lights flashing and sirens blaring. How cool is that?!?

I quickly redirected him to a firefighter theme. At this point, he decided he wanted his party at the local zoo for rehabilitated animals. Fortunately, my enthusiasm for the firefighter theme was contagious, and he eventually agreed.

Now to find firefighter party supplies. Every boy loves firefighters, so that should be easy, right? Never in a million years would I think it would be this difficult to find them! They weren’t at Party City, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Big Lots, WalMart, Target… anywhere! It was no small feat dragging all four boys to all of these stores either. Everything was cartoon characters.

I’ll probably end up buying some red party supplies and making a few fire engine decorations. This is definitely a lesson learned about time management. I’m a little behind in my planning because of the holidays. If I had more time I would have ordered the Transformers party supplies online and been done with it. Then again, the look on his face when the fire engine arrives will be worth these fleeting aggravations.