Zeno's Bar & Grill

It’s upon both of us…the impending birthday season. All five of our kids have birthdays in the next few months.

Somehow planning those birthday parties is never as fun and easy for us…not to mention calm…as it looks on this page from Pottery Barn catalog (we can't remember the last time our houses looked this clean either).


Forget romance novels, this is the kind of fantasy that we get seduced by these days. And a fantasy it is. If only it were as simple as ticking off a few items on a tidy little list. Instead, we find ourselves elbowing other mothers at the party store for the last set of Dinosaur cake plates the night before the party and wondering where it all went wrong.

This year, we are making a pact with each other to lower the bar on birthday parties. Let’s not forget who put the “birth” in birthdays. We did enough work on that day to last the kids until they’re at least 30.







We, Melanie and Kelly, do solemnly swear

1. To not feel obligated to invite the entire class.
2. To give goody bags only if we have fun putting them together and not from a misguided sense of guilt.
3. To limit value of said goody bags so as not to exceed that of a typical gift received at such birthday parties.
4. To keep budget of any and all putative parties from exceeding the GNP of a small country.
5. Unless there are major mutinies from our children, to have our parties at home (gasp) instead of feeling obligated to throw a shindig at the bowling alley, zoo or swimming pool that necessitates schlepping said dinosaur plates and about 80 lbs of other paraphernalia across town.

Who knows, maybe we’ll even start a trend and return to the days when a sloppy homemade cake, a couple of neighbor kids and some rounds of musical chairs were the makings of a spectacular birthday bash!

--Melanie & Kelly