I Want to Be the Girl With the Most Cake

The mom chatter of late has centered around the rising and ridiculous cost of and effort behind kids' birthday parties. First of all, like I said, there's the cost, which is astronomical. Second, there's the guilt over being a good greeny liberal and still giving into the excess that is the kiddie party. And last, there is the fear that these little ones will be as spoiled and, subsequently, f-ed up as we all are.

What to do?

My girlfriend, Nicole, who lives out in LA, just threw her daughter a first birthday party to beat the band. Every detail from the return address labels in just the right font to the personal and funny thank you notes, the Photoshopped party favors (a post-mod compilation of her daughter's fav adult songs done tot-style) to the cake (which should have it's own TV show, it's so stunning) popped—but not in that terrible keeping-up-with-the-Joneses way. Not at all.

From A to Z, the elements of the party had style and flair and self-aware over-the-topness that rendered them hip and fresh sans the creepy. Nicole is a punk rock Martha who wholly understands a good through line and she feted her daughter the only way she knew how: fabulously. Is this so wrong?

What ever happened to the motto, if you're going to do something, do it right?

And anyway, it's really not our faults. Years of reading In Style and Vogue, seeing Colin Cowie specials and watching MTV have honed our aesthetics and raised our expectations. So, it follows that our kids' parties are going to be choreographed better than an Vincent Minelli musical. For Nicole, her daughter's first had nothing to do with filling a void or being a show-off; it was the natural and obvious way she chose to celebrate.

So lay off, all you nay-sayer moms who poo-poo the big parties and the hullabaloo required to pull them off. It's our party—well, it's their party—and we'll do it up if we want to.

Or at least make a slight attempt to join us in our detail-oriented, pop culture-pastiching, everything-has-to-be-juuuuuust-right brigade—so we can feel a little better about the pony rental and the extra cost for the personalized stamps.