The Kids; They're Multiplying

   So my daughter's birthday is coming up this month and she is going to be 11. Now, you might think that this means a birthday party, but I do not do birthday parties. Oh, she gets a celebration, but I keep this celebration within the family: my mom, my sister, and her two kids. That is enough bodies in the house, thank you; no need to add more people to breath all of my air. And the kiddo gets to pick a special activity; sometimes going to see a movie and out to dinner, sometimes the zoo, things like that. This is all because I did a party once, and it was horrible.
   For my daughter's 3rd birthday, we did a party and invited a shit load of kids. And all these kids, they had to be entertained. And all these kids' parents: they left. I want to know since when a party equaled free daycare. I call bullshit.
   So there are all these little kids running around, and no other adults. Every time you opened a freaking door: more kids. They were like cockroaches, if you saw one, there where more you didn't see lurking around the corner. There were more of them than I initially invited, and they seemed to be multiplying by the minute.What. The. Hell.
   And so I was trying to wrangle kids and serve cake and keep them from fighting, because little kids: they're  vicious. One kiddo snatches a toy from another and they ALL start biting. How is that even a rational response? But try and explain rational thinking to a bunch of three year old ankle biters.
   I sugar them up with cake and ice cream, and it's time to open presents, and they are all crying because they want presents too, and little kids don't always get the idea that on birthdays, only the birthday kids get presents. But I give them all party favors, which soothes them, because at that age they don't care what they get, so long as they get something. Truth be told, all my daughter's toys have been have been pushed aside and they are all playing with the boxes, my daughter included. I'm freaking exhausted, and I don't care what they are playing with so long as it isn't fire or something that got fished out of the toilet, and I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of parents who should have never left in the first damn place. Of course, they are almost all of them late. And this is when I know that I will never have another birthday party again. Never. I celebrate her birthdays, but in my own way, not in a way that provides free daycare to kids who magically multiply.