Primary Party Redo

In the Fall of Manny's first year at his school, he was invited to a pool party. It was the party that the boys from Lord of the Flies would have revelled in. The whole night I felt like that was the unspoken theme-- shirtless boys flinging themselves into the water and later double-fisting candy and whacking eachother with inflatable swords. Piggy and Ralph would have been proud.

First off, this was before I was liberated from the notion that I needed to attend everything to which we were invited. And I looked at it like a chance at a clear-headed, one-on-one date with my boy. Because he is still not proficient in the water, I packed his life jacket, extra clothes and my swimsuit,too.

Then we arrive at this highschool pool with texting-teenagers as lifeguards/party MC's. And parents are dropping kids off. Parents, coiffed hair, and clicky date shoes, are dropping off their first graders. I was caught between mystified and wrathful. This is not to disparage the gracious and generous family who hosted the party. Themselves parents of four, like us, scratch their heads mystified by parenting and what kids at that age and in that number are capable of.

Inside it is loud in a unique way that only a high school hallway and pool can be loud. I look over and Manny, very excitedly greets the birthday boy only to be ignored. The boys mother prods him, and the birthday kid gives a perfunctory wave. Manny's chin goes down and he looks at his shoes as we walk to the locker room. And the Women's locker room no less. There was no way I was going to let him go in and change in there by himself and did not at the time know or trust anyone to go in there with him. We get changed and he says he doesn't want the life-jacket. We get onto the pool deck and it is a few Mamas like me with their kiddos but mostly it is 8 year old boys.

It was all the anxiety-producing things at once: high school + swimming pool + children with iffy swimming skills + social anxiety + postpartum body issues. It was like a developmental fishbowl: Here are the alpha parents who are able to drop their kids off and sit down to Pad Thai at PF Chang's. Here are their 8 year old boys who do the butterfly stroke for fun. Then here you have the kids who don't swim but who enjoy cannon-ball jumps with reckless abandon. And here are their parents who are in Danskos and chatting on cell phones on the pool deck. Then there's me, ears up to my shoulders with tension, not taking my eye off my equally tense boy. We played a short game of catch, but mostly watched the water-chaos. We were both out of our element, two quiet talkers, in a rough sea of splash balls and crumbly kickboards.

Dried and changed, I thought things would be better once Manny got food and things were winding down. Manny had a cup full of popcorn and stood with his friends. He called out the name of the birthday kid to get his attention. He listened for a sec and when Manny stammered a little too long, the kid said, "Not now, Manny." Manny turned around to me, blinking back tears. I didn't say anything and just said, "How are you, buddy?" He wiped his eyes, "I think I got popcorn salt in my eyes." At that moment, I vowed the following: to resume homeschooling at once, to never ever throw a pool party, and never to tell my kids about party invitations from kids I don't know. We were both deflated.

Today, more than a year later, we got a redo. We accepted the invitation from a girl who invited the whole class to a party that took place at their school. It was a Rock'n Roll themed-dance party. Manny's first co-ed dance party. He was greeted with his choice of eyewear and a homemade VIP pass. I sort of made my way away from him, chatting with mamas. And I won't say that he was by any means the center of the party or that he was even the center of my attention. But I can report to you that our boy held his own. He had meaningful interactions, he lip synced to Lady Gaga. He pinned the microphone on Taylor Swift. He even danced-- it looked like the grapevine step with hip-hop arms. He met me at the craft table. I said, "How's it going, Manny?"

"Mom, it's great. And I'm not ready to go."