But then, also I'd have to invite 24 kids to his party, without including any outside friends, which also seems crazy. Our school has a "buddy" classroom system where the kids are all commingled and drop off and pick up with the class next door but separated during the day.
How many kids are in your son’s room, after morning drop-off? Are there 24 total, or less?
We handed out invites for DD's birthday at daycare per the guidelines that all needed to be invited (again, small class so no big deal). However I really cannot see asking her teacher to pass along a note to remember to RSVP. It comes off a kind of rude to me, both to ask her to do it and not thank her for it AND to push off chasing RSVPs down on the teacher - which you absolutely did.
If I don't get RSVPs I'll just plan on a set percentage of kids. If we get more we'll make it work, and if we get less than that's just more for others.
I personally would never ask a DC teacher or a regular teacher to inquire about RSVPs. To me if they didn't make your party a priority that is on the guest that is invited. This is just basic manners.
Post by AutumnRose25 on Oct 19, 2016 14:51:10 GMT -5
I'm still trying to figure out how OP is insistent on the "best friend" needing to be at the party...but can't contact them directly because she has never interacted with said "best friend" or their parents at all?
I'm still trying to figure out how OP is insistent on the "best friend" needing to be at the party...but can't contact them directly because she has never interacted with said "best friend" or their parents at all?
My guess is it's like DD. She has a little girl and a little boy she talks about a lot, and I've seen them playing on the camera together like a little trio more times that I could pretend to count. I'd probably call the three of them besties. However my kids are going to ask for play dates enough when they're older so I'm not setting them up with people they already see 9 hours a day 5 days a week just to have to hang out with parents I don't know (but clearly could get to know). Play dates are reserved for times for me to drink wine with my friends while our kids destroy my house.
I'm still trying to figure out how OP is insistent on the "best friend" needing to be at the party...but can't contact them directly because she has never interacted with said "best friend" or their parents at all?
DS has a BEST FRIEND named Simone. I have never ever seen Simone. He was out an indoor play space with my Mom and they met and hit it off SO WELL that he begged for a playdate with her. So my Mom arranged to meet up with her and her grandmother a few times since then. They TALK about each other constantly and he wants her to blow out the candles with him at his 5th birthday party.
Okay, a kid party for a three year old is dumb. COME AT ME, PEOPLE! It really is. They barely know WTF is going on and would be happy if their only party guest was a piece of cake.
We don't do kid parties until 5.
I look forward to hearing all of your stories of magical three year old birthday parties and how wrong I am.
god. Do we really have to do one at 5?! I was holding out for like 10.
They start at 5 but I am shutting them down at 12. DD turns 11 this year and I told her it's the last one she's having.
god. Do we really have to do one at 5?! I was holding out for like 10.
They start at 5 but I am shutting them down at 12. DD turns 11 this year and I told her it's the last one she's having.
I am so looking forward to the day when he wants to have like 3 or 4 friends for laser tag or some shit and sleepover. When does that start? Like 9 or 10?
I'm still trying to figure out how OP is insistent on the "best friend" needing to be at the party...but can't contact them directly because she has never interacted with said "best friend" or their parents at all?
My guess is it's like DD. She has a little girl and a little boy she talks about a lot, and I've seen them playing on the camera together like a little trio more times that I could pretend to count. I'd probably call the three of them besties. However my kids are going to ask for play dates enough when they're older so I'm not setting them up with people they already see 9 hours a day 5 days a week just to have to hang out with parents I don't know (but clearly could get to know). Play dates are reserved for times for me to drink wine with my friends while our kids destroy my house.
OMG this verbatim. He sees these kids all day, every day. Weekend play dates are for my friends and he play with their kids. Win/win.
My guess is it's like DD. She has a little girl and a little boy she talks about a lot, and I've seen them playing on the camera together like a little trio more times that I could pretend to count. I'd probably call the three of them besties. However my kids are going to ask for play dates enough when they're older so I'm not setting them up with people they already see 9 hours a day 5 days a week just to have to hang out with parents I don't know (but clearly could get to know). Play dates are reserved for times for me to drink wine with my friends while our kids destroy my house.
OMG this verbatim. He sees these kids all day, every day. Weekend play dates are for my friends and he play with their kids. Win/win.
Then don't invite them to your kids bday party. Done and done.
You're making your life way more complicated than it needs to be. At school friends. At home friends.
There's no way in the 8 weeks since school started that I was going to foreee that parents would not bother RSVPing to DS' birthday invitation so I should hurry up and have a play date with each kid he wants to invite! That's nuts. My kid has been invited to 2 parties this year thru the cubby at school with no problems because- I RSVP! It's that simple. And I know for a fact that the entire class wasn't invited to either party. That's such a non issue here.
I could have foreseen this. People don't RSVP, if this is a plated dinner that you need an EXACT headcount for then make sure you have contact info. Otherwise, guesstimate like the rest of us. It sucks but this is a lot of undue stress on you and the teacher.
My guess is it's like DD. She has a little girl and a little boy she talks about a lot, and I've seen them playing on the camera together like a little trio more times that I could pretend to count. I'd probably call the three of them besties. However my kids are going to ask for play dates enough when they're older so I'm not setting them up with people they already see 9 hours a day 5 days a week just to have to hang out with parents I don't know (but clearly could get to know). Play dates are reserved for times for me to drink wine with my friends while our kids destroy my house.
OMG this verbatim. He sees these kids all day, every day. Weekend play dates are for my friends and he play with their kids. Win/win.
The difference is I invited the whole class to get them there. Otherwise I would've tracked down the parents on my own. I wouldn't have asked a teacher to give out some invitations and not others, and I wouldn't have asked her to follow up on getting me RSVPs.
They start at 5 but I am shutting them down at 12. DD turns 11 this year and I told her it's the last one she's having.
I am so looking forward to the day when he wants to have like 3 or 4 friends for laser tag or some shit and sleepover. When does that start? Like 9 or 10?
We've been to a few of these this year and DS turned 10. We had many nerf war in the park with pizza or movie on a rented blow up screen in someone's driveway (we don't have yards big enough here) this year. Or 10 kids and an experience thing. For DS, we did a park party last year, so this year I let him pick 10 friends and I took them to the indoor rock climbing gym - $14 per kid. Cheap and easy.
At three, the rule was everyone, all boys or all girls or you couldn't bring the invites to school. We have a shutterfly where you can get emails though. And we always use evites because all the parents know every kid can't be invited to every party, so with evites you can see who is invited and not talk about a party in front of people who won't be there.
As far as getting contact info from parents when the school doesn't give it out, I had this issue in first grade when one of ds' bffs was in his after care program, but not his actual classroom. So, his name wasn't on our class directory. I wrote a note and attached it to the kid's sign out sheet introducing myself and saying our kids are apparently friends, can we get together sometime and gave my contact info. Within the week, I had a message from the mom. DS has also brough home business cards (actual work ones, not the "mommy cards" I have seen advertised on various sites) of new friends' parents saying, "My friend and I wanted to have a playdate. He gave me his dad's card." It's worked well because then I have an email and can get in touch with the other parent.
It sounds like the teacher did exactly what you asked, which is super nice of her considering how hard daycare teachers work. I agree a nice bottle of wine would be appropriate.
The idea of tasking a daycare teacher with administrative projects to ensure proper, targeted RSVPs to a massive (20 kids is massive) 2 year old's birthday party is insane to me. They're there to teach.
Post by WOUNDTIGHT on Oct 19, 2016 18:07:15 GMT -5
I mean, I can keep answering but if people want to just make stuff up, there's no point. I didn't ask anyone to track any responses. I didn't ask a teacher to call me, or keep a running excel spreadsheet. I didn't ask them to ask the parents to respond to me.
I did ask 2 teachers to write a total of 3 sentences each. (We're talking about 6 kids, not 20.) Guilty as charged! I'll make it up in my Christmas tip.
Neither the school nor the teachers were put-out. I know. I had the conversations and interactions. There are no rules around giving out invitations at school or having to invite the whole class. If there were, I happily would have complied. It simply is a non-issue. And I'm in this mess in the first place because I tried to include more kids than I originally wanted, as to not hurt anyone's feelings.
So, I'm kinda done talking about this. It's so silly. It wasn't even the point of the thread!
I really wish I could come up with something good to say so there could be a triple lawyering. But what do I know? I give my cat part of a muffin for her birthday.