Hannah Montana Birthday Party

My daughter turned 7 last week. For her "friends" birthday party, my wife had the idea to let her invite some friends over for a "fake" sleepover, where they would all arrive in their pajamas with pillows in hand, watch movies, and goof off. By and large, it's been going pretty well -- they're all still downstairs as I type this.

My wife and daughter agreed that the party would be themed on Hannah Montana, which seems to be such a culturally significant force in my daughter's life that she squealed in delight at the prospect, despite having only seen a few of the episodes in her entire life. Her whole attitude is clear evidence of the power of peer pressure -- even at such a young age.

Nevertheless, the six girls who were able to come tonight were all delighted to arrive. Four of them watch Hannah Montana regularly, and three of them actually arrived wearing Hannah Montana pajamas. It's shocking how inundated these girls are with Hannah Montana paraphernalia.

In any case, they're having a really good time. My daughter asked to have hot dogs, grapes, and French fries for dinner, which all the girls were happy with. Then they put most of the lights out and watched a few episodes of Hannah Montana. Interestingly enough, most of the girls quickly got bored with that. Instead, they wanted to just play games and be silly. Ironically, my daughter is the only one being a stick in the mud, as the games that the girls are playing are "boring". It's a classic "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" moment (kudos to my wife for this observation!).

Still to come tonight they will play more games, including games with glow sticks. They will also eat some cupcakes that my wife placed in the tops of ice cream cones and covered with frosting and silver sparkles -- they look like microphones! My wife intends to get them to sing "Happy Birthday" to my daughter into their "microphones" before eating them. It should be a hoot. Afterwards they'll watch while my daughter opens presents.

All in all, it seems to be going well. It is way after my daughter's bedtime, and it shows. She is grumpy, opinionated, and demanding right now, which cracks me up. She was so excited about having this late party, and at this point, she pretty much just wants to go to bed.

Tomorrow will no doubt be very interesting. She has a soccer game at 9:15 in the morning, and she has not yet had a good game due to various reasons (too much heat, too late in the day, too close to a meal ...). Because of this, she really does have a bad attitude about her soccer games, which just saddens me since she has so much promise. I have absolutely no doubt that her attitude about soccer tomorrow morning, because of this late party, will continue in that trend ... Ah, well, she's happy tonight! (Sorta!)