It was a balmy March day when I figured I would brainstorm ideas towards the greatest birthday party any boy could want. After all, my youngest son was turning eleven in August and there was not going to be many more years of birthday plans to be had in the future, at the rate he was aging. (You know if you’re a mom and having been through this twice before, how around twelve or thirteen your sons no longer want what they consider something beneath them and embarrassing. They say things like: “Awe Mom, I’m not a baby anymore.”

So thinking I’m ahead at this game, I grabbed my son and asked for his opinion on my ideas. We decided on a bike party and I began to research ideas in magazines and on the Internet.

It being march-I guess I let down my guard and thinking I was so far ahead and having plenty of time, I kind of just poked along getting things for the party together until suddenly I turned around and my middle son-turning eighteen and not into kiddie parties had his birthday.

This was July and August sixth was fast approaching. I began to hastily make lists and start to purchase. The weather was so hot, we decided the hour for the party would be best early morning or evening. We set the date for the Saturday evening before my son’s birth date.

My first inclination of Murphy’s Law should have been when my son announced as we were readying the invitations, “TJ and Jimmy can’t come this day and Brendan has a game.” This was half his list of invites and of course he did not want to do it without them and they would also be upset if they missed the event.

So we switched the date. Now we were scheduled on a week past the actual birthdate, but it was so hot I was welcome for a time lapse. And besides i was having a time trying to find where to hold this thing at. We had to have an area to do a bike obstacle course with a shady spot to do the cake and Ice cream and place the presents. None of the schools would let us in for insurance reasons and the bike pit had no spot for the food to sit so with total- meltdown, literally and how can a mom let a birthday party stress her so much-my husband suggested the park down the street’s lot which very few people ever use since it is out of the way from the rest of the park.

That taken care of, we delivered the invitations and I ran all over town trying to find the “easy to come up with items”-at least that is what the websites’ had called them-pieces needed for the obstacle course and the other games my son had chosen. I finally had to make do and substitute another item for several such as cardboard boxes for pool noodles, etc. And breathing a sigh of relief and proud of my accomplishment, coming home I began to organize my paraphernalia.

“Where’s the cake?”, my son asked the morning of the party. Was I glad we had chosen an evening time to hold this party. I drove frantically around trying to find black paste food coloring, necessary for the black bike wheel tire cake I had planned to do. Have you ever tried to find black paste food coloring at the last minute? And as I was driving I noticed I didn’t need the air conditioning for some reason. The day previous had been in the 90’s, but that evening at the party the wind blew, the temperature was about 65-not that cold, but after being used to 90 and above-“freezing” with rain.

My son loved it though and it brought me great satisfaction having given him this, even if TJ, Jimmy and Brendan didn’t show.