Last minute party planning

I'm not the kind of mother that does the super cool birthday party thing. In fact, I hate hosting my kids' birthday parties. I don't mind adult gatherings but I just don't like entertaining little kids.

Megan decided, despite my best efforts to sway her, to have a swimming party, In October. In Colorado. We have six inches of snow on the ground right now. It is a freaking blizzard outside. Don’t get me wrong we love the snow but it isn’t conducive to a children’s swimming party.

I, of course, waited entirely too long to book the party and we ended up with the crappy time of 11-1 on Sunday. This was the last party available until the middle of November. We go to 9:30 mass so it’s going to be a busy morning. Many of her friends attend service at 10. I originally thought we should invite only a few close friends and her classmates from co-op but after several potential partiers declined we invited her entire 2nd grade class too. The children who declined all said they couldn’t make it because it conflicted with church. I assumed we would get a low turn out and began to panic that no one would make it.

Today I received 11 yes RSVPs and 13 more who are coming but will arrive late. Oh my. We still have yet to hear from a dozen or so more.

Now I need to figure out how we are going to work the party. Should we do the cake and present thing first and then swim? Or should we do the swimming first and then sing after all the late kids arrive? I’d prefer to do the party portion first for two reasons. First, the kids could then stay in the water and swim as long as they’d like, until 5 pm. And second, it’s going to take forever for everyone to dry off, shower, get dressed, do their hair and so on…. I don’t want to waste most of the two hour time frame in the locker room. But I also don’t want the kids coming late to miss the party portion either.

Did I mention that I hate birthday party planning?