He’s Almost 3 and Ready to Party

My son Sam will be 3 on Saturday. This is probably not news to anyone we know. He’s done a pretty good job of publicizing the event.

Sam has been planning his birthday since July, when his friend Lily turned 3. It began a week or so before Lily’s party, when they had a conversation, in their fashion, about her plans. “I’m gonna have soda at my party,” Lily told Sam importantly. Sam ran to me. “When it’s my birthday, can I have a party with soda?” Neither kid had ever tried soda.

“We’ll see,” I said. He ran back to Lily.

“I’m gonna have a pinata at my party,” Lily added.

Sam ran back to me. “And I need a pinata for my party.”

“I’ll remember that you want one,” I answered noncommittally.

After Lily’s party came and went (with neither a pinata nor soda), I thought Sam’s interest in birthdays would dwindle. I didn’t understand the single-mindedness of my son.

A few days after Lily’s party, we were driving past a park in our neighborhood. “Stop!” Sam screamed from his car seat. I stopped. Sam had spotted a birthday party in the park. “I need those at my party,” he said, pointing to crepe paper streamers draped between two trees.

Things escalated. When the people next door had a clown for their 1-year-old’s birthday, Sam announced that he needed one for his, “a man clown with a ball on his nose and balloons for all the kids.”

After another boy on the block had pony rides at his party, I found Sam critically surveying our small front patio. “Where can the ponies go?” he asked plaintively. “We need to get a bigger yard.”

Perhaps now is the time to say that I, too, had a vision for Sam’s birthday. At my fantasy party there would be six or eight of our closest friends and their kids. We’d eat bagels and cream cheese, let the kids run around and then have cake and ice cream. I told Sam my ideas.

“That’s not a party,” he said contemptuously. We let the matter drop.

Bracing myself, I told Sam we needed to decide who was coming to his party and to send out invitations. I made suggestions, and he listened. He made one addition of a neighborhood girl he wanted to invite. Things were going remarkably well.

I began to realize my folly the next morning.

“I’m inviting you to my party and Brenda, too,” Sam told Gloria, the woman who comes in to take care of him four days a week. So far, so good. Gloria and her daughter were on the official guest list.

Sam continued. “And Hector and Blanca and Emma Elizabeth and Maria and Jorge,” he said, mentioning every member of Gloria’s extended family. Gloria looked at me. I was mentally adding bagels to the number we would need. I nodded. We love Gloria. If her family wants to come, they’re welcome. Everything would be fine.

Or so I thought until I picked Sam up from preschool a few days later. Two of the kids in his class raced up to me. “We’re going to Sam’s party,” they squealed excitedly. I looked for Sam. He was keeping a low profile.

Sam’s teacher came over. “So Sam invited us all to his party. Are there really going to be three clowns and ponies?” she asked.

I don’t have any real idea what’s going to happen on Saturday. I know for certain that I have ordered no clowns, ponies, disc jockeys or trapeze acts.

But I can’t speak for my son. For all I know, he’s been on the phone with caterers, talent agents and circuses, lining up the food and entertainment. I’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, I keep upping the number of bagels I need to buy and cakes I need to make. So, if anyone reading this happens to be in the neighborhood on Saturday between 11 and 1, stop in. Sam would want it that way.