Was I wrong not to invite her?
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| Tue, 10-16-2007 - 7:32am |
OK ladies. Please give it to me straight. Was I wrong not to invite dd's cousin to her halloween party.
Youngest dd (age 9) had halloween party after school yesterday. We live in a small apartment so I said 6 guests max. Because dd usually goes to her dad's on weekends, she doesn't get to invite friends over to play on weekends so this is her one time to have her school friends over to her house. (this is the only party type event she has during the year).
dd invites 6 friends from school (and it was hard for her to decide which 6 because she is such a social kid). Heard back that 1 couldn't come so would be 5 + dd. On Saturday we are at the mall getting supplies when we see dd's cousin. Now the cousin lives next door to dd's dad's house and aunt does some afterschool care for dd 2 days a week so dd and cousin spend a fair amount of time together. I realize, oh no, we didn't invite cousin. But because one guest said no, I thought we would invite cousin (which would stay within limit of 6 guests). (nothing was said to cousin when we saw her at mall as to what we were doing) So we buy supplies for 6 guests + dd. ON Sunday, before we have had a chance to call cousin and invite her, the dad of the guest who said she couldn't come called me to say his kid really wants to come but he had said no because he was working and had no way to get her home but would it be possible that I take her home after party. As they only live 4 minutes down the road I said yes.
So now I am back to 6 guests + dd (and this is all I have supplies for). I had not yet invited cousin and decided not to because #1 -- adding one more kid around my table in my teeny kitchen would have been very difficult #2 -- I didn't have enough supplies and it wasn't something I could stretch (7 pumpkins, 7 treatbags, 7 of each treat going into bag). Stores were closed on Sunday and I worked all day Monday so no time to get extra supplies between work and party. Also, cousin has down syndrome and most time she gets along with other kids very well. But sometimes she can decide that she wants to do things on her own agenda at her own time and there is no changing her mind.
I could tell dd was torn between wanting cousin to come and wanting it to just be her school friends. So we just invited the 6 school friends.
I suppose I could have squeezed one more around table but with paint, glue, glitter, etc. it was really tight and cramped as it was. I probably could have taken one thing from the other treat bags to make up another treat bag but then they all wouldn't be the same (and we know how 9 year olds like to compare to make sure they were all the same) (In each treat bag were 1 pencil, 1 eraser, 1 sucker, 2 hard candies, 1 stamp + stamp pad, 2 stickers).
dd and friends go to elementary school and all came home on the school bus. cousin goes to middle school, comes home on a different bus and is 45 minutes later getting home.
My older dd tells me this morning that she was talking to older cousin on the bus yesterday and Auntie thought it strange that cousin didn't get invited to party.
Was I wrong not to invite her? (All HONEST opinions welcomed). Do I call auntie and explain?
sighhhhh.

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I'm sorry Nancy, I didn't clarify who I was speaking to in my post. It was directed at the OP who sounds like she believes she made a mistake in not inviting the cousin...which is why I said that she knows her family dynamic more than anyone else here, so only she can truly decide if it was a faux pas to exclude her cousin.
I did not feel that you were being judgemental in your post, as you were simply stating your opinion just as everyone else did.
I just have one suggestion for the future, but it might have worked for this party, too. Whenever someone unexpected shows up and I don't have enough goodies, etc. for each child, one of my kids gives up his/her treat bag. When they were little, I'd make it up to them later, but now that we've had this policy for a while, they don't really mind anymore. This sort of frees us up to be spontaneous about inviting an extra person, and gracious when someone's uninvited sibling just shows up!
It isn't wrong to be exclusive about parties. You really can't invite the whole world or even all your friends to a single event. When a kid has to select people to include, it's a great lesson for them because it helps them be less upset when they're the one excluded from someone else's party.
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