Elijah's Party

If you've been around for a while you know that five times a year I lose my mind.  Five birthday bashes that have to blow my children away.  It puts me into a frenzy.  First figuring out what to do, then how to do it within reasonable limits (ie. no pony rides in the backyard and NO, I'm not hiring entertainment).

This year, we had no plan for Elijah.  Poor guy, he suffers since his birthday is just a week after Christmas.   We barely recover from the holidays before we remember that his birthday is...well, tomorrow.  The two big boys got a CSI science set from my parents for Christmas.  It got me thinking about parties and science.  Two words that shouldn't be used together in a sentence, but I am a nerdy science lover.  We chatted it up a bit and decided to investigate CSI parties.  Unfortunately, I kept finding non-murder mystery parties for kids.  Those sounded uber cool to me--see previous nerdy remark as explanation.  That literary, character based fodder falls into Everett's realm.  Elijah would be frozen in terror if we gave him a script and told him to 'act like this character' with a group of friends.  Probably not a good idea for his birthday party.

I happened upon this little gem.  A download for $19.  Most of the work done, but still requiring hours of detail planning.  I loved that the kids were working things out to solve the crime.  I was nervous about the gruesome factor. I took it a little farther by sending id badges along with invitations.  We made up funny names like "Rob Bersnatcher" and "Bea A. Heerow".  I did speak to every mom before the party, explaining that my husband was going to be 'dead' and they would investigate his murder.  They had six different stations to visit trying to decipher hidden messages, match DNA evidence, footprints, and fingerprints.  They had a blast, competing on teams of detectives trying to be the ones to solve the crime and win the prize.

My mom and her team working on morgue information.  Too bad they discovered that she was actually the murderer!

I'm naturally worried and overly sensitive to exposing kids to things that are scary.  This party put me on edge.  I didn't have anything to worry about but my own child!  Josiah took one look at Seth (whom I had "bludgeoned" as he was at an art easel in the basement) and touched his head, then pointed at him and said, "Is he, the blood, is he..."  I guess the red paint and fake wound were a little much for him to see on his own father.  He did refuse to visit the 'morgue' and check out the morgue photos (I had to bludgeon Seth the night before and take morgue shots for the party).  That said, view the next photo with caution.

Notice his hand covering his mouth, he knew he would smile or laugh as the kids chatted about the crime scene.