Our identical twins Mr. B and Mr. C’ 5th birthday party has been scheduled to happen tomorrow for over a month.
We even reserved an inflatable jump house for the event. We’ve been excitedly anticipating the event for weeks.
Given the season, we knew there could be a chance our plans might be fouled by the weather.
And sure enough, tomorrow’s forecast includes a 100% chance of precipitation.
Sarah and I have talked about what our ‘Plan B’ looks like for a rain out, but I think we’re both a little bit disappointed.
Not for ourselves, more for the lost opportunity of the bounce house for the boys and their friends.
But, we’re moving forward unhindered by the wet weather and ready to have a good time indoors, all the same.
Games
Sarah has come up with some fun indoor games and prizes for the kids to enjoy. We have a play room upstairs and we think this will be the best indoor alternative.
We’ll gather up some big, floppy clothes and organize a relay race. Two teams of kids will line up and each take turns running to the end of the play room and back, each time dressing and undressing in some funny, floppy clothes.
For the clothes, we’ll use some from our own closet.
The winners will be awarded some candy. Yes, many of the eating rules get broken during birthdays and holidays at our house, too.
Then we’ve also considered setting up an indoor scavenger hunt, complete with clues and some kind of prize at the end.
This will involve creating some materials, maybe some clever rhyming clues with pictures and some prep work to hide them around the house.
For a prize, we thought it could be fun to hide the boys’ birthday cakes and let those be the final reveal. Although Sarah is making the cakes, so it could be difficult to hide the cakes from the boys for 24 hours. We’ll have to see is that is feasible.
Treats
The ‘eating cake’ part of a children’s birthday party typically plans itself. Make cakes, light some candles, sing Happy Birthday, portion out the slices, sit back and watch the feeding frenzy.
Birthday parties on a day with nice weather allows for kids to go outside to play, but we won’t have that luxury.
So it will be important for us to schedule some physical activity for the kids after the ceremonial sugar ingestion is complete.
If things get too wild indoors, as a last resort, we could clear out the garage and let the kids go nuts on each other with some cans of silly string. I can only imagine how much our guest’s parents will love this idea.
Maybe if we get the kids hyped-up enough we could give them some swiffers and turn them loose on our hardwoods.
Is it unethical to load a dozen kids up on processed sugar and arm them with Endust and rags?
Another idea I considered was to have a painting party in the garage.
We could put down a bunch of tarps, set each kid in front of a canvas with a brush and some paints and let them go to work for 45 minutes or so.
When the activity eventually devolves into a paint fight, we’ll sit back at a safe distance and enjoy the melee.
In Conclusion
The boys’ 5th birthday party most likely isn’t going to go as planned.
As much as that’s a bit of a disappointment, we have no doubt we’ll be able to create some fun indoors.
As long as they have some fun, it will be a success.
How have you handled birthday party showstoppers like a rainy day?