He totally knew but it was still a great party

Yesterday was My Kid's 14th birthday, which I didn't really talk about much here b/c we were planning a surprise party and you never know who might be reading your blog. About 2 weeks ago, his girlfriend (who I will henceforth refer to as "Spice Girl," which has nothing to do with the reunited British pop group but everything to do with the fact that her name sounds like a spice to me) called me and said she wanted to throw him a surprise party and could I help her? So we discussed some options and decided on a pizza place where we could get the little side area. She invited people and I bought some decorations and a cake and made arrangements to get him there at the appointed time.

Turns out we're not all that good at surprise parties.

Ways in which we ruined the surprise:

1. Some girl at school text (texted?) My Kid and said, "I thought we were friends. Why wasn't I invited to your party?"
2. I inadvertently opened the trunk yesterday while he was standing next to me and all the decorations for the party were in there. He said, "You wanna explain that?" and I said, "Oh, damn. I was going to decorate your room this morning for when you woke up!" but he wasn't buying it. He said, "You were going to decorate my room with PLATES?"
3. One of the party guests was standing outside when My Kid showed up. Big Daddy had told him they were meeting me up there for dinner. So when he saw his friend the gig was pretty much up.

My Kid is in the white hat. His friend Alex on the left is the one who was running around outside when the guest of honor arrived.

Here's something I bet you didn't know about 14th birthday parties: It's not necessary to bring a gift. Just give the birthday person whatever money you have on you. My Kid walked away with $115 which is completely outrageous to me.

All I know is, you'd have never gotten 25 people to a party for me when I was 14.

Hell, I don't know 25 people now.

The cute little blond in the middle-right (light shirt) is Spice Girl.

Teenage girls love to pose in groups like this. I'm fairly sure this continues until like their sophomore year in college.