What was I thinking?

So, over the kids' Christmas vacation, we planned several fun activities for them at the library. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Winter craft was a huge success. We ended up having 83 people attend our all-day film festival, which seemed pretty good to me. (Lots o' positive comments from parents, too.)

The one that wore me out, though, was our New Years' Party. Yikes! We were limiting registration to the first thirty kids, which was a pain when the fortieth person called, but... The local newspaper showed up and was impressed by the setup (we had New Years' hats and tiaras, lots o' books set up, and cheap plastic tablecloths on the tables -- not for ambiance, but because they make cleaning up glitter much easier). We watched a film, talked about the New Year, read about a goose and her resolutions, and then adjourned to the tables for the craft. We were going to decorate clear plastic wine glasses with glittler and sequins and shiny pipe cleaners. All of that was noisy and messy and fun and manageable.

Where it started to edge over into chaos is during the next bit. I handed out the snacks (2 cookies and a chocolate in ziploc bags) and we poured the "wine" (grape Hi-C). Then, I handed out noisemakers and we counted down to midnight.

Need I even continue? A room full of excited children with noisemakers? Oy vey!

By the time we were done, I had taken noisemakers away from a few of the more lively boys and I was exhausted. I told another department head that if she heard me talking about such a party again, she should assume I had been smoking crack and hit me on the ehad with a large hammer until I passed out.

But.

But, I know I'll do it again. As wore out as I felt when it was over, the kids loved it. One girl (she was about 11 years old) came back to hug me and thank me for the "best party [she] ever went to!" So...

Sigh.

I won't do it often, though.