Over the course of the school year, Audio has gone to a few birthday parties, maybe four.  Dee Dee has been invited to zero.  On the days when Audio’s mom brought her to the birthday parties, I’ve done something fun with Dee Dee that we couldn’t do with the other two around.  But no matter what we did, it was clear that she felt like she was missing out on something by not being invited to the party that Audio had gone to, even if she didn’t know who Audio’s classmate was.  Dee Dee just wanted to go to a party. 

When we were still many months out from her birthday, my wife and I started talking about how we’d celebrate it.  Then, given the option of having a small, well-organized party with a few friends or a less organized “everybody do their own thing” get together with all of her classmates, Dee Dee chose to include her entire class.  We decided that it would work best to have a gathering at a nearby park with a playground.  Serve cheap pizza, bottled water, good cupcakes, let the kids run loose in the park and on and over the playground, and then have decent gift bags for the kids to bring home.  Nothing fancy.  But we’re not fancy. 

We’re about a month away from Dee Dee’s birthday.  I’d really been hoping that someone would have invited her to their party by now.  It’s difficult to see her wonder if she was being left out or if there just hadn’t been any parties.  And, if we’d even heard about other kid’s parties that she hadn’t been invited to, I’d have an idea of the level of effort folks are expecting out of these things.  But, I’m pretty convinced that there haven’t been any parties that Dee Dee has missed.  When I was a kid, kids shot their mouths off about everything that they did.  If something happened that I hadn’t been a part of, I’d know all about it by the end of the next day, whether I wanted to know or not.  From the way Dee Dee describes her classmates, things haven’t changed much.  If all the other kids had been together without her, they would have let her know, one way or another. 

Over the past week, or so I’ve asked around to see if there have been parties that Dee Dee wasn’t invited to.  I didn’t just come out and ask people if there were parties that she didn’t get to go to, but I brought up the fact that her birthday was approaching and asking what other kids have been doing for their birthdays this year.  One mom said that her daughter’s birthday was right at the beginning of September, before the school year started, so they just had a family party with a couple of the girl’s closest friends.  And, since Dee Dee wasn’t in class with this girl last year, it made sense that girl wouldn’t have invited Dee Dee.  Another parent said, “Well, I can tell you what the boys have been doing . . .”  So, the boys are having boy parties.  Dee Dee, not being a boy, or even very boyish, wouldn’t have been invited to those parties.  A third parent let me know that they are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they don’t celebrate birthdays.  After that conversation, I figured it was best to quit asking around. 

At the start of the week, I used the student directory to collect the email addresses of the parents who had allowed them to be included.  I typed the addresses into a word document and then typed up a short request for contact info from the parents who hadn’t shared their information in the directory.  I explained that it was so I could invite their child to Dee Dee’s birthday party as clearly as I could as to avoid having any unintended interpretations for the request.  I formatted the page so I could fit seven requests on one sheet of paper, I printed it out, used a craft slicer thing to separate the requests into small slips of paper, and I put my phone number and email address on the back of each one.   I didn’t put a date, but we had a pretty good idea of what day would work best.  It would be on the Saturday before her birthday. 

I gave Dee Dee the slips of paper and explained that she should write the name of the five kids on five of the slips (so she’d know who got slips and who hadn’t) and leave the other two blank (in case one was dropped, or ripped, or burned, or something).  She should tell the kids to tell their parents that they can write their email or phone number on the slip and send it back to Dee Dee.  Or, they could contact me with the information on the back of the slip.  Dee Dee said that she had it under control. 

When I picked up the girls at the end of the day, Dee Dee looked a little upset.  I asked her if she’d handed out the slips.  Dee Dee hemmed and hawed a bit and then she said that she had, but that another girl had handed out invitations to her birthday party.  And her party was planned for the same day that we’d planned on having Dee Dee’s party! 

We went straight home, and in order to avoid other parents beating us to the second-best date for Dee Dee’s party, I started creating an Evite invitation.  Luckily, I’d already proofread the email addresses earlier in the day while transferring the addresses to an Excel spreadsheet, so I felt pretty confident about having all the addresses correct (there was one error that I missed, but it was easy to fix).  Dee Dee picked her favorite Evite card, and we took a photo of her to slap on it.  By the time Dee Dee’s mom got home from work, we had the whole thing ready and all I had to do was have my wife give it a once-over before I hit the send button.   

After the invitations were sent, we ate dinner and went to the girls’ swimming lessons.  At some point I realized that the Saturday we picked was during Memorial Day weekend.  A weekend famous for people leaving town to open their cabins for the summer.   Fortunately, by the girls’ bedtime we’d received enough RSVPs to know that the date would work.  Dee Dee went to bed happy.  I woke up in the middle of the night when I heard a notice that I had an email.  It was an Evite to one of Dee Dee’s classmate’s birthday party being held the Saturday after hers.   I’m guessing that not having the email addresses ready to go is what kept that parent up late.