Babywearing themed party

DD turns 7 in two days. TWO DAYS! That means if I don’t get this blog post about her 6th birthday party up in two days, it will be seriously old news!

Six year old birthday parties are a big deal at our house. It’s the first party where we do more than just invite friends to come and play and eat cake. Additionally, there’s a theme. Choosing her theme was super easy. She is my junior VBE (volunteer babywearing educator) and has always loved all things babywearing. She totally shocked me at age two and a half when she was able to get her doll safely into a mei tai, on her back, by herself! She also loves to hold her own babywearing meetings with an oftentimes uninterested audience (her brothers 😀 ) So, the decision to have her babywearing as the theme was easy. What wasn’t easy was coming up with activities and games that fit the theme. Thankfully, my friend Holly, who throws the best and most creative birthday parties, gave me some ideas to get the creative juices flowing! (Thank you, Holly!)

We sent out invitations a few weeks in advance.

When guests arrived, they were met by this display, and the gifts were placed on top of the woven wrap

(The painting on the right was a gift from hubby when he returned from a work trip to South Africa. I adore this painting!)

Since people tend to arrive to parties not always on time, I like to have a filler activity for kids to do while guests arrive. The activity was to decorate the tail of a ring sling, which would be used in a game later on in the party. I made two mistakes: 1) glitter. . . . enough said! 2) glue, unsupervised . . . . The younger kids ended up dumping massive amounts of glue, which meant that their ring sling tail was never going to dry. Alas. They had fun, so I guess that was still a win!

Once they had finished making a mess decorating, I tossed a basket filled with scarves, aprons and other random pieces of cloth into the middle of the room and said, “Quick, it’s an emergency! We have to get our babies in carriers, but we don’t have any carriers! You’ll have to made do with what we have!” Watching them try to figure out how to attach their dolls with the basket goodies was pretty entertaining.  In the end, they all managed to be hands free, not necessarily safe for the dolls, but hands free!

For their efforts, the guests all got doll mei tais.

After this activity, it was apparent that the guests needed a bit of education on safe babywearing, so DD gave a little presentation on the different carrier types and how to use them. Something about doing it in front of friends rather than your siblings made it more nerve-racking, but she still did a great job!

She also helped them all get their dolls in their new mei tais. Much better, right?

The guests all wore their dolls/animals/etc in their carriers for the remainder of the party. It was helpful to have their dolls in carriers, rather than in arms, for the next game: an obstacle course. Some kids dove right in and ran pell mell through the course, some so vigorously that they lost their dolls! Ooops! Other kids took their time and were much more thoughtful and careful. Everyone had a fun time, though. What kid doesn’t love to run around like crazy!

At this point, the party had been going for about an hour. My plan was that the decorated ring sling tails would be dry. They weren’t, so playing “Pin the tail on the ring sling” was kinda messy, but fun! In true “Pin the tail” fashion, the tails were all over the place! But one child managed to pin it almost spot on.

The final activity was weaving. Woven wraps are a type of carrier, that are, well, woven! 😀 Each child got a little cardboard square with yarn, and they got to choose strips of fabric to weave. This was better suited to the older girls, who were 8ish, and they sat and weaved for a good 20 minutes. Even though the 4 and 5 year olds struggled with coordination, they still were able to create a nice little woven mat.

Once all of the activities were done, it was time for food! Coming up with clever babywearing themed snacks was not hard, especially since Babylonia happens to give MANY of their wraps food names.

We had wraps and cupcakes and a drink,

and fruit and veggies and crackers.

All in all, the party was a grand success, we celebrated babywearing, and everyone had fun!  That’s a win in my book!