Kaia got invited to a joint birthday party of two classmates later this month. They invited all the friends and family in our entire kindergarten class of 20 kids, and it’s being held at a popular indoor play space in lower Manhattan. As soon as I found out it was joint, I thought this was the most amazing idea: combine two birthday parties so that you reduce the number of parties you require parents to take kids to, thus consolidating schedules, while also decreasing all costs by half. This is win-win for everyone! I immediately started thinking about who else has a birthday close to Kaia’s.

Then at the mid-Autumn Moon picnic on Sunday, a mom who has a kid whose birthday is in late November said she wanted to do a joint birthday because the costs were going up by so much, and I said I wouldn’t mind doing a joint one with Kaia. It would be Kaia’s first real birthday party outside of her class birthday parties, plus her first birthday that Chris’s mom threw, which of course Kaia cannot remember. So I said we’d exchange ideas and figure out a date.

It’s nearly a crime how expensive kids’ birthday parties can be in New York City. Space Club, which is a play space with multiple locations in Brooklyn, charges $990 simply to have a private room for about 90 minutes, and it’s 12 kids maximum. That does not include food, drink, cake, decorations, or goodie bags. It certainly does not include adult food. We tried looking at hosting in our building lounges, but that would require more coordination on the part of us as the parents/hosts.

The research and planning continue. I wonder where we will end up?