... and it's always the red Hawaiian Punch

            My wonderfully talented niece recently posted pictures of the birthday party she created for her 1-year-old daughter. Amber chose the theme of “Alice in Wonderland,” and every detail was covered.

She had green grapes strung through skewers to resemble centipedes. There were lacy sugar flowers and filigreed place cards featuring the whimsical sayings from the Lewis Carroll classic.

Our great-niece was outfitted in a dress worthy of any little girl wishing they were Alice, and everybody was clean at the end of the celebration.

            Looking at the pictures, I found myself thinking back to the days when we had our sons’ birthday parties. I tried to talk my boys into having a party with activities for both girls and boys, but they practically threw themselves on top of their Transformers in horror.

            First, no frilly dresses. Since most of our parties involved playing ninja on the swing set, party clothes were cut-off jeans and a T-shirt. I tried to slip a nice shirt over the birthday boy for the pictures, but that was soon covered with frosting, crushed Chee-tohs and spilled Hawaiian Punch.

Always the red Hawaiian Punch.

Instead of dainty sandwiches and confectionary roses, we had hot dogs roasted over a small campfire in the back yard.

We tried using skewers once, but metal skewers aren’t meant for food – they’re swords and the bearer of said skewer instantly turns into a dastardly pirate. That was the last time we tried that one.

No back-yard hot dog is complete unless it’s covered with lots of catsup and mustard that drips all over the fronts of their shirts or, in a really classy move, smears all over the sleeve of their T-shirt because shirt sleeves are handkerchiefs first, clothing second.

I tried using party hats as favors once, but that didn’t work. The boys punched the pointed end out and pushed the hats up onto their arms to form a gauntlet, aka Iron Man or Spider Man, who thinks he can jump off the top of the slide.

When it comes to cakes, we’ve had everything from a Superman cake to a Batman cake to a Spiderman cake. If you think red Hawaiian Punch is difficult to remove from a T-shirt, try removing red frosting from the front of that shirt.

Or blue.

Or red and blue frosting mixed with red Hawaiian Punch.

My niece had matching napkins for her daughter’s party, and the white tablecloth coordinated perfectly with the tiered plates and platters of finger foods. Both she and her daughter wore beautiful dresses and were clean throughout the whole event.

Forget napkins at a boy party. All we needed was a water hose and boys willing to hold their noses and cover their eyes while we hosed them down from their hair to their sneakers at the end of the shenanigans.

When it came to decorating our house for the boys’ birthday parties, all we had to do was make sure there was an ice chest on the patio filled with juice boxes and frozen ice pops.

Inside, breakable items went on top of the fridge, and we rolled up the rugs because red Hawaiian Punch and cupcakes that accidentally fall frosting side down into the rug leave their mark forever.

Especially red and blue Superman cupcakes that are then smashed into the rug by 5-year-old boys running through your kitchen on the way to the bathroom to fill balloons with water.

When it comes down to it, parents do the best they can to make milestone events special for their children.

No matter if it’s white petit-fours or red and blue Superman cupcakes.

And always the red Hawaiian Punch.

Always.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.