Birthday Parties

twister22 · September 2013

DS started PreK this year, and today he received his first invitation to a classmate's birthday party. It's on a Saturday during BD's time. I text him and let him know, and he said I could take him to the party if I wanted, which I will be doing because DS is so excited.

So it got me thinking - what do you guys do when one of the kids has a bday party? Obviously bday parties aren't extremely important things, and if a kid misses one it's NBD, but what's been the norm with your BF situation?

SimpleJane · September 2013

XH has them almost every Saturday. I just give him the invite and he takes them if he has no other plans for them that day. If he had something else planned he will sometimes skip it unless Myles is close with that particular classmate and really wants to go.

The thing that bothers me most about this is that I don't really get to interact with the other parents, only XH does.

new+tothis · September 2013

I just pass on the invite to BD and he can take DS if he doesn't have other plans. BD does the same for me. If there's an invite for a friend of one of ours (like from my moms group or BDs work) we will usually tell the other parent about it and give the option to switch parenting time. So if one of DS friends from my moms group has a birthday party I'll tell BD and ask if he wants to change parenting time so DS can go. If he doesn't have plans we will switch. Otherwise we will just leave it and DS won't go.

Lavender P · September 2013

We would gladly take SS to a friend's party on our time, but BM has never notified us of any. He had one friend that had a party on our weekend, and we told SS we could take him. We got a text from BM saying that the date of the party was switched so we didn't have to anymore. We never went to any friends from school parties because we only get SS EOWE so all the invites went home with him. If there is a family party we try to accommodate switches but once we realized that BM wouldn't reciperocate we stopped.

sweetwalks · September 2013

We aren't quite to that age yet.

SS was invited to one last year, we are relatively long distance to BM, it was our weekend, anniversary actually, on the last day of our parenting time. We offered to meet early so BM could take him (you know interact with the parents, etc.) but she pretty much refused. We took him.

We asked for a couple hours on a weekend to take him to a cousins party, BM said no. In family situations, it would be nice to be able to work together and have the child for a few hours for the party, but it doesn't always work that way. We've always been generous with meeting early for SS to attend various family functions but are rarely given that generosity in return. Oh well.

Lavender P · September 2013

sweetwalks said:
We aren't quite to that age yet.

SS was invited to one last year, we are relatively long distance to BM, it was our weekend, anniversary actually, on the last day of our parenting time. We offered to meet early so BM could take him (you know interact with the parents, etc.) but she pretty much refused. We took him.

We asked for a couple hours on a weekend to take him to a cousins party, BM said no. In family situations, it would be nice to be able to work together and have the child for a few hours for the party, but it doesn't always work that way. We've always been generous with meeting early for SS to attend various family functions but are rarely given that generosity in return. Oh well.

Same here, which is why we stopped. Plus, we really only get SS four days a month and once we started saying yes, BM claimed they had a party every weekend, always on our time in the middle of the day Saturday. It would be nice to be able to work together as long as you are not in a situation where one side always tries to take advantage of the other.

sweetwalks · September 2013

I agree Lavender. Our schedule is the same...in the past it's been, an hour earlier drop off time on Sunday for her birthday, or a few hours early for a cookout, etc. the only time we asked was for a couple hours on Saturday, we were picking him up & dropping him off & she said no.

We still, reasonably, try to work with her because for the most part she works with us, for other schedule things.

I agree, it's nice to work together but only if both sides are truly working together.

CFjo2010 · September 2013

andrea99 said:

Well last year, apparently all of the invites were sent to BM's and we never saw a single one. I had no idea and figured kids were doing family parties or something. She went to one at the end of the school year that I got an email invite for. I finally found out that SD missed at least ten parties last year, most of which took place on our time since we had her every weekend. She has one in a few weeks on BM's time, but she gave up the day so we could take her to the party because DH confronted her about all of the missing invitations last year.

We had something similar happen during kindergarten. We never saw a single invite and then a mom mentioned something to me one day about "missing K" that weekend at the party. I asked what she was talking about and she informed me that there had been a birthday party and that BM RSVP'd on our behalf saying that K was out of town. Funny, we were at home about 10 minutes away from the friend's house... Now that I'm friendly with most of the parents, they will text me or talk to me at school and verify we received the invite. If the parties land on our weekends and we don't have something going on already, we gladly take K to the parties.

This issue actually came up in mediation. BM asked the mediator what happens when there are birthday parties for friends and wanted something put in the CO that we would switch days to accommodate K going to these events. The mediator looked at her and said, "If the parties land on his time, he is fully capable of taking her. You aren't the only one who can drive". As for family parties and stuff, we generally just plan to have them on our weekends with K. My family knows our schedule, and they plan around that as well.

twister22 · September 2013

jobalchak said:

andrea99 said:

Well last year, apparently all of the invites were sent to BM's and we never saw a single one. I had no idea and figured kids were doing family parties or something. She went to one at the end of the school year that I got an email invite for. I finally found out that SD missed at least ten parties last year, most of which took place on our time since we had her every weekend. She has one in a few weeks on BM's time, but she gave up the day so we could take her to the party because DH confronted her about all of the missing invitations last year.

We had something similar happen during kindergarten. We never saw a single invite and then a mom mentioned something to me one day about "missing K" that weekend at the party. I asked what she was talking about and she informed me that there had been a birthday party and that BM RSVP'd on our behalf saying that K was out of town. Funny, we were at home about 10 minutes away from the friend's house... Now that I'm friendly with most of the parents, they will text me or talk to me at school and verify we received the invite. If the parties land on our weekends and we don't have something going on already, we gladly take K to the parties.

This issue actually came up in mediation. BM asked the mediator what happens when there are birthday parties for friends and wanted something put in the CO that we would switch days to accommodate K going to these events. The mediator looked at her and said, "If the parties land on his time, he is fully capable of taking her. You aren't the only one who can drive". As for family parties and stuff, we generally just plan to have them on our weekends with K. My family knows our schedule, and they plan around that as well.

#owned

mccall0113 · September 2013

OP you must have read my mind. We received an invite today. It's on BD's time. He will probably take DD but my question is... who buys the gift??

twister22 · September 2013

mccall0113 said:

OP you must have read my mind. We received an invite today. It's on BD's time. He will probably take DD but my question is... who buys the gift??

BD is letting me pick up DS to take him to the party, so I will buy the gift. But if you're giving BD the invite and leaving it up to him to take your DD, then I would say he should buy the gift. If it was you p/u DD and taking her then I would say you.

Littlejen22 · September 2013

Honestly the best thing you can do in life is not set the expectation for your child that they will go to every party they are invited to because if parties are popular at your preschool it gets very expensive and especially annoying when you realize your child does not even talk to the kid but wants to go to their party. So take him to the first one because he is excited and then for everyone going forward hand it to BD and let him RSVP for himself, you will thank me!

Littlejen22 · September 2013

Kids won't die if they miss a party. Just try to make it for their BFF.

katie_cj · September 2013

My ex lives 3 hours away, so Jake tends to miss parties. That's life. He has two best buds that I've arranged to switch weekends for so he could go to the party. But that certainly not something I'm willing to do all the time. Same for family events, he just misses some of them.

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