p A clown again? Another magician? Laser tag? All fine, but enough already. Who has the energy? Never mind the energy,
p what's the added value of a big birthday party every year? This year I offered Ido one of two options:
p 1. A birthday party for the whole class, or just the boys
p 2. A night at a hotel, alone with Mom :)
p Guess what he chose?
p I'm here to tell you all about the idea, because why enjoy alone?
p Last year I really went all out, to a sickening degree, and invited aaall the boys in Ido's class to a sleepover at our place!!
p Yes.
p To sleep.
p Sleep as in sleeping bags, mattresses, meals, an all-nighter, activity stations, movies into the night and more. This year I realized I still hadn't recovered from that night.
p So how would we celebrate this year?
p Say we'd chosen to invite friends, for just two hours. At best we'd prepare the activity two weeks ahead.
p The pressure, the stress, the money... It always starts with: an entertainer 800, pizzas another 400, party favors 100. 1,300 shekels and done.
p Except it isn't.
p A venue to rent, snacks, cakes, decorations, something for the parents to nibble on, and there are always the extras that cost quite a lot. And what about the time we put in before and on the day?
p In the end, would Ido really make a long-term memory? Is a birthday with friends something that would be etched on his heart again this year? Maybe we'd mix it up?
p I didn't decide on my own; I simply asked Ido:
p What would you prefer? A birthday with friends? Or a night with Mom at a hotel? I explained that for the same money we could spend much more time together, collect more memories and, above all, have real, fun quality time. I also explained that in life you should taste a bit of everything.
p The schedule is very complex; I hope you can keep up:
p I went into all the hotel booking apps and was surprised to find lots of great hotels for around 700-800 shekels a night including breakfast. I rushed to book (with free cancellation, of course) a boutique hotel in Tel Aviv and told Ido the anticipation starts n-o-w!
p We planned the 30 hours carefully, and when we thought about how we'd have the most fun, it was clear the word "lazing" was going into the schedule.
q “The agenda: Beach, Sleep, Hug, Kiss, Eat, Massage, Love” Me
p Another word that featured strongly in the plan was "food", so we booked a table at a great burger place (HaProzdor) for lunch on the first day, went on to walk by the sea, hurried to the hotel to laze around like there's no tomorrow, ordered pizza to the hotel, had a cake from the hotel delivered to the room as a surprise I'd ordered ahead, watched a movie, wrote a script together for a movie we made up (that's for another post), imagined how we'd travel the world with the money from that movie, and went to sleep cuddling!
p How much fun is that. Sleeping cuddled up is life.
p The next morning we had a great breakfast at the hotel, went back to laze around the room a bit more, checked out and went on to a Thai massage on the street!
p It was Ido's first massage ever. As a devoted massage lover, I felt I had to pass on the pleasure. And to get him ready for Thailand someday in the future :) How he enjoyed it!
p A funny moment: there was a sign saying "Massage only". For the first time in ages I was lost for words when Ido asked me what else people could ask for. I said it was an excellent question. Lucky the receptionists don't speak Hebrew and couldn't answer him!
p From there we went on to the promenade, sat and rested on a bench for an hour, drank a fruit shake and went on to a reunion with the rest of the family. After all, they want to celebrate him too :)
p The lovely Brown Lighthouse hotel on Ben Yehuda Street, Tel Aviv
p The excellent burger restaurant for kids, HaProzdor. Whatever you do, don't skip the sweet potato fries!
p We really loved their cute menu; it made us laugh a lot. Dishes like "being a scaredy-cat" and "first of all, calm down", and the signs on the wall. We found time to read everything and laughed.
p Treating ourselves at Calypso by the sea
p In short, what did we get? Calm, quiet, and an actual vacation.
p Life is so busy; it's important to enjoy as much as you can. But the trick is to do it smart. To listen to ourselves, not follow the herd. Kids don't always know what they want, and it's important to steer them to better places.
p At the sleepover he also felt loved, and I'm sure that memory is in his heart forever, but there was something magical about this vacation too. For both of us.
p All the details are in our stories.
p So why enjoy alone?