I know, I know, it’s not that long since you last heard from your favourite Sad Old Dad (apart from, perhaps, your actual sad old dad), but I felt like I had to strike while the iron’s hot because (clickbait alert!) YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT.
There have been plenty of this sort of story in the papers recently: the one where the parents asked for non-attendance money when a kid failed to turn up for a birthday party; the leaked list of things to buy and not buy a one-year-old. Well, last night we had a similar incident of our own in our actual real lives.
It involved the three-year-old (who, if he could read, would be yelling “BUT I’M NEARLY FOUR!” at this point). A few weeks ago, he had been invited to a birthday party for a boy he goes to nursery with. They’re not friends, particularly, but we’ve been round to their house for playdates and, sod the kids, we kind of like the parents and have invited them (and their kid, obviously) to Thing One’s fourth birthday party in a couple of months’ time.
Last night, Mrs SOD got a text message, it read, loosely: “Sorry, but would you mind terribly not coming to the party. M feels that he and your boy are not really close and only wants his friends there to celebrate. Hope they can become friends in the future, blah blah.”
Soon, plans were being hatched. Let’s throw an alternative party on the same day. Let’s stand outside with placards holding a protest party of our own
Mrs SOD was devastated. As Oscar Wilde might have put it in his toddler years: there is only one thing worse than not being invited, and that’s being uninvited. Within moments her phone was ringing off the hook (can you still say that for mobiles?). Turns out that there were three uninvitees and while we were prepared to suffer in silence, one of the other mums immediately took to social media.
Soon, plans that would never come to fruition were being hatched. Let’s throw an alternative party on the same day. Let’s stand outside with placards holding a protest party of our own. Let’s uninvite M to our various parties and so on…
The point is, when our boy had been given the option to choose the guests for his own party, we had instinctively known that he was not able or ready to do so. In fact, he had told us in no uncertain terms that the only people he wanted to celebrate his fourth birthday with were us, the two other kids who were uninvited and one other boy they play with, let’s call him Trouble, who was never invited to M’s party in the first place. Beyond that curt instruction, his requirements were simple: no girls (stinky). When we explained that that would be quite a small party and urged him to expand his guest list, he willingly extended the invitation to Ben Elf, George Pig, Spider-Man, Hulk and Iron Man.
Obviously, we ignored him completely and drew up a list based on the kids he played with at nursery and those whose parents we knew, liked and had endured playdates with at each other’s houses. If only M’s parents had done the same… Happily, Thing One is oblivious to the whole drama. There will, I fear, be some strained conversations at pick-up and drop-off over the next few weeks, but I have promised Mrs SOD that my “Justice for the Uninvited Three” placard will remain firmly in the shed.
@simmyrichman
