Next Time Order Pizza, Too

While I woke up this morning slightly bleary, our Halloween party was, on the whole a a ruckus success. There was chaos, and more chaos, intense feasting on candy, pink champagne, a pint-size dance party to New Order's Blue Monday and trick or treating through the bacchanalian halls of our 30-story building. And most of the party had cleared out by 7:30, leaving us to catch up with our good friends who stayed on for another glass of red wine and a bath for the wee ones. I even cleaned the oven before I went to bed.

There were no goodie bags, no chicken fingers and no organized activities. I figure there is so much about our kid's lives that are kid-ized and bastardized to fit a rather narrow--and dare I say commercial--viewpoint that children must always be ENTERTAINED or worse, EDUTAINED. Our parties cater towards parents having a good time, engaged in community, not just standing around awkardly watching our children in some lame activity.

Next time, however, I will make a concession. Being the smug bastard that I am, I'll remind you, dear readers, that my children eat a wide variety of food, mostly because I only make one meal each night for the family, which they can either eat or go hungry. So they eat sushi, noodle soups, kale, pork roast, pad thai, whatever is not spicy or strangely made of potatoes or squash (go figure). But at a party with extreme mayhem, even my kids need easy finger food so they will actually eat something. My brilliant, "let's be healthy!" idea to serve beans and rice and whole wheat tortillas on plates for the kids, wasn't the greatest. The kids did end up crazier than perhaps warranted.