Birthday party
My boys had their 6th birthday party this weekend. While wanting a Power Ranger theme party, I still try to fight the total commercialism of childhood. Instead they designed medallions for capes. While the designs were either images or variations on their names, every boy pretended to be an established character - we had two Supermans, a Batman and a Robin - rather be one of their own creation.
I figure this will be my last year of giving a CD of their favorite songs from the past year. I've been making CDs since they were two years old. It was a way to remember what songs they loved and at the time be a different guest gift after the birthday party ended.
Last night I stayed up to burn the following:
- Roll Away - Papa Grows Funk
- Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
- Country Roads - John Denver
- Tomorrow - Annie the Musical
- Hard Knock Life - Annie the Musical
- We are Family - Sister Sledge
- Four White Horses - from their camp CD
- I love the Mountains - same camp CD
- Right By Your Side - Eurythmics
Of course, while I am trying to avoid a completely character-themed life for my kids, I still have very fond memories of watching Wonder Woman on television. And I probably would have begged my parents for the Wonder Woman cereal, underwear, flashlight, books, toothbrush and nail polish if it existed. In fact, at 37 I still keep a look out for a good t-shirt.
And if I buy one, each boy will get a character t-shirt.
4 comments:
I hope that your boys had a good birthday. I'm going to do a post sometime about commericial childhoods. I couldn't live without the plastic barbie mask and barbie body apron thing when I was five on Halloween. I looovveeed it. Only when I was about 13 did I realize the bad parts. Then I ripped all of the brand names off of all my clothes. My mom thought I was losing my mind.
The boys did have a good birthday. Funny thing was we spent the evening with a little friend who couldn't make the party. His parents have bought him every violent cartoon character costumes available which, of course, my boys went straight too. They played in them for 20 minutes and left them alone.
The little friend? He got to make his cape and wore that for the entire 2+ hours we were at their house. Something to be said for letting them play with just their imaginations.
I love the idea of creating a CD of your boys' favorite songs for the past year. I just did something similar with my daughter--we hosted our first playdate right around her first birthday, and I gave away CDs of her favorite lullabies/dance party favorites to our friends. This is a fantastic tradition, and as they get older, the kids can choose the songs they love. Thank god for Itunes, which makes this so easy...
Sweet Caroline is one of those songs that will guarantee me singing as loudly as I can, no matter where I am.
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