MyThreeDaughters

If you have a kid, you end up going to a lot of birthday parties. Sometimes, just for one kid, you might have stretches where there’s a party every other weekend.
So I was at one today, with Fontaine, for a girl who turned six. It was at a bowling alley, what with most first-grade girls being all about hooking their fingers into a 10-pound ball and heaving it down a lane, then kicking back with a Bud Light. (Oh wait, not really.)
So I was standing around talking with the girl’s Dad. I looked over the table of a dozen or more kids snarfing down cake.
Did you invite her whole kindergarten class?
“No, we couldn’t, we just went down the list and asked her who she wanted. We were hoping for *regrets*,” he said.
Oh yeah, regrets, regrets only. That’s funny, hoping for them.
“People call and they feel bad telling you they can’t come,” birthday Dad says, “but we want the *regret* too. I’m thinking, ‘You want the regret, we want the regret, come on, just give us the regret.’ ”
Hearing all that, I think back with such regret…about a couple of parties for which we didn’t send regrets. How happy we might have made those Moms and Dads.