Party Girl

A few weeks ago, the three of us were invited to a pumpkin carving party at a lovely apartment in Manhattan. As is usually the case in our New York group of friends, Muffin was the only kid there. As soon as we arrived, I saw the food so beautifully laid out on the Muffin-level coffee table, and I started sweating. For the next two hours, Muffin was basically the toddler equivalent of the party guest who drinks too much, dances with the lampshade on his head, and spills red wine on your couch. She stuck her fingers in the guacamole, she triple-dipped into the salsa, threw half-eaten chocolates all over the floor, and managed to get her grubby hands on every clean shiny surface in the apartment. She somehow turned on a clock radio I could not figure out how to turn back off. Our hosts were wonderfully gracious about the whole thing, but I left the party feeling like I needed a drink. Aren't you supposed to leave a party feeling like you need to sober up?

On the way home, the Canuck and I debated if we would take her to an event like that again. I think there’s value in putting Muffin in these types of social situations, because how will she ever learn to navigate them if we don’t expose her to them? Plus, from a selfish perspective, we do occasionally like to do something other than deplete our NetFlix queue on weekend evenings. But Muffin seems to be at the worst possible stage to make these kinds of outings. Boundless curiosity – Impulse control = One Ill-Mannered Party Guest.

We’ll probably accept the next invitation, and I’m even thinking of hosting a holiday party, despite previous, um, crappy experiences. Cutting off these kinds of activities is so hard because the Canuck and I cling to the idea that we can still do cool things even though we are now parents. We want Muffin to know our friends, and to understand that while most of the time we live in her orbit, occasionally, she must live in ours. Also, we are very dim.

I take some comfort in realizing that we’ve probably reached the peak of this kind of difficulty. And we’re still standing, still madly in love with our daughter, and still on speaking terms with our friends. It can only get better from here.