OmegaDotter, now almost five, has reached the age of birthday parties.  We have been to three now.  The first two were relaxed, laid-back affairs at people's houses.  Hot dogs and burgers, cake and ice cream, a few games, present opening, voila, easy-peasy and relaxing.

Yesterday''s was at the poor man's Chuck E. Cheeze, Peter Piper Pizza.  We're too small to have a CEC here, so PPP has to do.  Having heard mutterings of CEC parties, I knew kind of what to expect when I walked in the door.

Ack!

Noise!  Kids running everywhere!  Greasy pizza!  Noise!  Kids!  Cake!

Did I mention "noise"?

And pink!  Very, very pink!  The first two parties were boys' parties.  Little boys get to have primary colors at their birthday parties.  Little girls get to have pink!

Little girls' presents are also pink!

OmegaDotter and I had trudged off to Target to get a present.  Presents for the boys were easy.  Presents for a girl?  Um.

First off, the dotter kept pointing to things that I knew she wanted.  Horses:  horsie-looking horses.  Pink horses.  Horses with wings and long flowing hair.  Barbies and Disney princesses with horses.  Horses and carriages.  Setting aside the fact that I knew she was pointing them out because that's what she wanted, she also tended to pick the most expensive things.

And Bratz.

And Polly Pocketses.

Bratz--well, some moms don't want their girls to have Bratz.  (I'm not going to go into the deep moral, social, and literacy implications of Bratz.  Suffice it to say, they are the Epitome Of What Is Wrong With Our Society for some.)  So, nix on the Bratz.

Polly Pocketses--OMG.  Polly Pocketses are the work of Satan.  They have so many itty bitty accessories.  Each and every Polly Pocket comes with fifty kazillion small plastic items:  combs, brushes, hair dryers that are half-an-inch long, shoes, bracelets, notebooks, dogs, cats, dog dishes, leashes, you name it, Polly Pockets comes with it.  I eyeballed them, thought of household pets scarfing down small plastic objects and requiring emergency trips to the vet, or, at the very least, an unending search for The One accessory that is missing and causing great wailing and gnashing of teeth, but sure to turn up in the vacuum cleaner bag, and nixed Polly Pockets, as well.

We ended up getting some sort of (pink!) faux hairstyling set.  (I wanted to get the Barbie tea set.)  At least there were no small unnecessary plastic objects to get lost, eaten by small siblings, or stepped upon in the middle of the night.  Plenty of big unnecessary plastic objects, but they'd be the kind that would be easy to spot in the middle of the living room carpet.

Then we ventured off to the pizza place.  OmegaDotter's One and Only True Love, C., was there.  His mom was there, too, and we huddled with one other mom we know in a protective knot at the end of one of the tables, cringed at the noise, and guided one another through the intricate maze of tokens for games, redeeming winning tickets for toys, and shepherding children to and fro.

The headache and jangling nerves that resulted took hours to wear off.

OmegaDotter's birthday party will not be at Peter Piper Pizza.

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