I've never planned a 3 year olds birthday party. It's a tireless thankless task executed out of love. I've heard stories though, and I've seen the scars of past parties planned.

In running a 3 year olds birthday party the kids are your primary focus. They're always in your peripheral but never quite in focus. They're the bride and groom at the wedding where you're the best man, the ring leader, the stress taker, the fire-man. You can never step back and take it all in. You're always aware of the two main characters but you've got shit to tend to. You only need to know if they are smiling, crying or screaming. Outside of that you're busy.

With kids you have to toss your mental hula hoop around them and keep it in the corner of your eye at all times. If you leave the room, take a mental snapshot of the hula hoop and it's contents of energy and bladders, slip out of the room, get your shit done and get back in the room to compare your picture with what's there now.

Your job is the impossible. You must balance what is inherently unstable, the emotional state of a large gathering of 3 year old children. You are clown psychiatrist, acrobat, punching bag, cook, bum wiper, laughing stock, and pee-pee helper. Slack off on one of your jobs and you have a damp, extremely loud powder keg of a child on your hands.

If you're lucky, only a few hit this stage at once. Act fast and you may be able to contain it's spread. Move slowly or botch the fallout negotiations and these rebel emotions will spread faster than a still-lit cigarette butt in the hills of Malibu, although I don't smoke and I've never graced the Malibu hills.

Your first mistake is attempting to make sense of it all. Let go of logic. Logic is for computers and Dr. Spock. It's the quickest side exit to that rubber room your sister always promised you. It won't make sense now and it probably never will. Maybe, just maybe, 6 days down the road after several forensic audits, garbage sifting, and victim interviews, you will develop a theory. It's only a theory though. Your key witnesses only speak the language of nonesense and you are their main enemy in life. Their only job is to figure you out. You hold the key to the gates of sugar mountain. You know how to make the black box dance and sing for them and you can put it to sleep in a moments notice. You bathe, feed, exercise, and clothe them. You run the system and the only goal in their short lives is to push your buttons. There are no rules in this game. Thinking there are rules, or that you are writing those rules, is more useless than applying logic.

I've seen this in it's full glory in my 3 year old niece. I once watched her check her flank ensuring the coast was clear and then promptly scatter her new wooden puzzle across the floor. At first I applied the adult logic to this. Why would she do that when she knows I'm sitting here and can obviously see her? The answer came in a scream, "Mommy, uncle brydie ruined my puzzle!"

I understood and was clearly impressed, and scared. The kid's got style, I'll give her that. I wasn't paying enough attention to her. To hell with me, she'd frame me like she framed all the teachers and other kids in her life. What she hadn't figured out is that we adults have our own language. The one where we spell out what the little ones have done. I do wonder how many crimes she's pinned on me when I'm not around to plead my case.

The only kid worse than a bad kid is a smart good kid. They're great actors, they're puppeteers and the strings are threaded through our adult shoulders. They're gifted little criminals trying to break into that vault of magic where we keep Barney, the Teletubbies, that new outfit, the candy, and everything else that is sweet in their tiny world. The sooner you realize your role in the game the better off you'll be.

I don't have any kids of my own yet, however, I have a few plans to keep the upper hand when I do. The first is to protect our adult language. You can only say "C-A-K-E" around kids that haven't been taught to spell yet. So, I'm not teaching my kids to spell. There's a good reason POW's aren't taught how to break codes. You don't train the enemy stupid. I realize this won't last forever. I have friends with border collies that have already worn out "C-A-T" and "W-A-L-K" so I know my time is limited.

Next is confusion. They want to talk their babbling nonesense to me? Fine, I can talk gobble-babble-tum-tong with the best of them. They're looking for patterns and consistency. That's how they figure you out so keep them guessing.

The final tactic is your standard cold war. By default, they will view you as their enemy. So we create a new common enemy. It's doesn't matter who, they're just a figure head anyway. Pick a neighbour you're not all that fond of. Blame everything on them and be consistent with this. Making the kids eat their greens? It's not your idea, Jim from two doors down said they had to. Sorry kids, Jim just told me that the TV has to go off for the rest of the day.

If you're having a particular problem with the TV issue then escalate your approach. Head downstairs to the circuit box and cut the power to the whole house. Run back into the room freaking out, randomly throwing Jim's name in there. Once the kids move onto some quieter forms of entertainment, make sure the TV won't come back on, then flip the power back on and throw in a comment about Jim being happy with how quiet they're playing. Fire with fire baby.