What's important?

In trying to plan a birthday party for Wyatt, I was broadsided to learn, after a couple phone calls to parents of his schoolmates, that, while I was gone this summer, all hell broke loose and it's High School Revisited: in-fighting, competing, and gossiping amongst the parents -- no: amidst the mothers. The fall-out, which has nothing to do with Wyatt or us, is that nobody could be in the same room together, even for the sake of their children, who are all friends. The fall-out, which has nothing to do with Wyatt, sent ripples far-reaching so that it had everything to do with touching Wyatt.
I went from being shocked to sad to disappointed to disgusted. And then I shifted my focus to my son's day and how to make the best of a ridiculous situation.
Life is what you focus on, and this was a condensed lesson but, due to it affecting my son, I found it heartbreaking and challenging to steel up and explain to him that this was going to be a small party.
"You will all get bigger slices of birthday cake."
"There will be more piñata candy for each person!"
"They can stay as long as they like, because we won't have a housefull."
I refrained from telling him that his friends' parents were a bunch of assholes, and he never learned what was going on behind the scenes. To be forthright, I tried not to let this get to me, but I did shed a few tears. All is said and done, but it just gets so disappointing that people sometimes sink down to the lowest common denominator.
So, one family came -- they have three children, and um, class. It was a nice party, and probably even superior in some ways than the typical kidfest b/c we were all relaxed, and in (silent) agreement that the priority was to make it a great day for Wyatt. The children went for boat rides; they went swimming; they ate all the cake they wanted; and when they finally cracked open the Spongebob piñata, we let them eat all the candy they could stomach.

We adults talked, touched briefly on "the situation" and really enjoyed each other's company. They did stay longer, and when the sun started setting, we opened up a bottle of wine and sat back to watch the sun slowly sink into the horizon. The kids sat on the lawn in a circle by us, and Wyatt opened his presents.
He got a good Lego robot and a bad Lego robot! For the only kind of battling we'll be involved in.
On Sunday, Troy's Dad & Gina + our fave aunt & uncle were invited over for dinner to celebrate. With the wreckage from the Spongebob piñata and general party mayhem, we were definitely scrambling to clean up the house and make food. First and foremost: the all-important chocolate honey birthday cake w/the marzipan bees from "Feast." Then I made roasted potatoes; a huge vat of chilli; and the ricotta & pine nut salad (also fr. Feast).



The boys and I sat down together to make the bees. It was fun. I'm not a very crafty person, so this was really nice for a change, and we had a lot of laughs about the funny bees.

The boys were covered in chocolate by the end of this process, but totally happy. Griffin announced that kids like getting dirty, and of course, that's true.

Wyatt got some great gifts, including a pirate costume & sword; a transfomer; and a detective/spy workbook.

He went to bed a contented boy.