Your Boy/Girl Twins Have Just Turned Five. What Are You Gonna Do Now?

If you've made it through five years of late-blooming motherhood with twins, here's what you're going to do:

You're going to Disneyland.

Accuse me of being unoriginal. Unimaginative. An American parenting cliche. A victim of societal pressure. A rube taken in by the massive Disney marketing machine. A mom in for a long, long day that will no doubt include some whining, a tantrum or two, and overpriced snacks.

You're right.

I'm going anyway. Full disclosure: I'm not going today, on their actual birthday, because a number of factors (including dad's work schedule) mean Saturday is the big day, with more crowds; it can't be helped. But nevertheless, I'm going, with dad along to kid wrangle. I'm going because I went to Disneyland with my parents as a kid, and I loved it.

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It's The Simple Stuff That Brings The Most Fun

The kids have been opening the birthday presents on average of one a night -- give or take, here or there: I make them take a night off from presents if they've been especially difficult.

It's kind of like Hanukkah all over again.

But they're getting jaded anyway. Sometimes they open a gift and are initially disappointed, but on another day, they can't wait to play with the thing they rejected the night before.

On a rainy Saturday, we opened the box of "science experiments," and played with test tubes, pipettes, and colored baking soda tablets that dissolved really fast in hot water, slower in cold, and created really cool zones of color when put into milk on a dinner plate.

I've helped them put together puzzles and snap-together cars, squeeze plastic dresses on tiny plastic dolls (and tried to keep track of all the tiny parts, from miniature tools to wee doll shoes that have come into our lives since the birthday party).

We've read books, made necklaces with beads, had tea parties.

But perhaps the most exuberant moment of all came from a spray bottle of sculpting soap for the bath.

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What A Swell Party It Was

Okay, I gotta admit, despite all my grousing about the preparations and cost, the kids' party was a rousing success.

They simply loved having a birthday party.

You could see the excitement on their faces when we got to Child's Play, the indoor playspace we'd rented for the party. Once inside, they ran gloriously amuck, initially having the place to themselves, then looking surprised yet happy when familiar faces began to arrive.

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Birthday Parties: Outta Control

When they turned three, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were surprised and thrilled and satisfied by mini-cupcakes in their classroom, plastic star-shaped sunglasses and crazy straw party favors for all. The "party," at preschool, lasted maybe 15 minutes. We also took them to dinner with a couple of friends. They got tricycles and helmets, and a day at the park to use them. Done deal.

But a year later, they're Birthday Party Veterans. They have asked about having a party, given opinions on where they want it and what they want at it. So they are getting one.

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The Almost-Fours

They will be four on Tuesday.

They can't wait -- for ice cream birthday cake (Lightning McQueen for him, Ariel the Little Mermaid for her) and for their party.

I am getting the sense this is going to be a very fun age. Mostly, I like eavesdropping on them when they play without my immediate supervision. Yesterday I overheard this: "Where are my boots? Oh, there they are! I will go take a walk with them." "Where will you go?" "California.

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Birthday Party Fatigue

Back before I was a late blooming mom, I remember attending a birthday party while visiting my then preschool-aged niece. There was a rented Jump-a-lene, there were goody bags, there were lots of kids bouncing, eating, or crying, and my niece -- who is a super kid -- could not have been less interested in the presence of her aunt and uncle at this party, justifiably so. What I also remember was being bored out of my mind.

Now, preschool birthday parties are a regular fact of my life. Happily, now that I'm minding my own kids at these affairs, and actually know many of the parents, with whom I can quite amiably chat for, oh, say, three minutes at a time before being interrupted by the kids with some request, they're pleasant affairs. Even fun. Until Thing 1 or Thing 2 has the requisite "I don't wanna go home" meltdown.

But I gotta admit, party fatigue sets in, simply because the birthdays come willy-nilly one after another for five, six months at a time, until every kid in a preschool class has been suitably feted. My kids are immune to party fatigue, even when attending parties at the same venue a mere few weeks apart, and eating the same food at each party. For grown-ups, though, it can get monotonous. Of course the monotony is punctuated by the unexpected injury that happens when Thing 1 doesn't look where he's going and slams into a wall -- or another kid -- at GenericKiddieGym. Then there are moments like this: just yesterday, Thing 2 broke into spontaneous tears of terror when the rented Jump-a-lene, which we'd touted all the way over to the party, turned out to be decorated with the enormous inflated head of Spiderman. She never set foot in the thing and had to be carried, eyes closed, arms clutched tightly around a parental neck, every time she passed it. "Batman" she declared with a three-year-old's logic, is "nice," but "Spiderman is scary."

These moments, I have come to learn, are the hazards that come with the preschool party territory. They also include the fights over the goody bags on the way home -- hey party-giving moms and dads, at risk of sounding ungrateful, I must ask, why would you not include the exact same goodies in the goody bag so invited siblings can get along? And then there's the whole gift etiquette thing. At risk of sounding like the ever-kvetching Larry David of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, I gotta mention that if the invitation specifies "no gifts," my kids will bring no gift. So what's with the parents whose kids still show up clutching a festively gift-wrapped package?

Then there's the dilemma of where to throw a party, and how much to spend on it, when it's your kid or kids who are having the big day. Late Blooming Mom threw the kids' birthday party at preschool lunch this past year, which involved the purchase of store-bought mini-cupcakes, and making up goody bags: easy peasy. The kids were turning three, and to them, this was just enough of a party to let them know it was their special day. But now that they've been to so many of their classmates' parties, the ante has been upped. I know for damn sure the in-class party ain't gonna fly next year. So what'll we do come the day they turn four? The choices are a park -- my choice of preference, but dicey in January (when their birthday party will occur) even in sunny Southern California; our place, which is probably far too small to accommodate the guest list of every kid in their preschool class plus parents plus outside-school friends; a rented venue which offers the advantage that somebody else cleans up, but which will cost a minimum of two hundred and fifty bucks BEFORE food and any potential entertainment. I shudder to think of the final bill, yet I know how many of my fellow preschool parents have already shelled out such exorbitant sums even for the most mundane of venues. And this is for birthday parties for three and four year-olds. Once I thought Bar/Bat Mitzvahs had gotten out of hand.

Thinking back to when I was a kid attending parties -- or being the birthday girl -- I can't remember a single time when I went to a pricey rented venue. In those days, moms would inflate some balloons, put up a couple of streamers, spread butcher paper on the floor and throw down a bucket of crayons. Later we'd have some cake. That was that. The building I grew up in had a community room with a fully functioning kitchen that could be reserved for a small --- and I mean small -- fee, and it was there my first few birthday parties were celebrated, as were my brother's. One time, Dad did a magic show. The one really special event I remember was an in-person appearance by Alvin and the Chipmunks -- three guys in colored robes and big paper mache heads. They did some lip-syncing to their theme song and departed. So in the intervening years, I gotta ask: what the hell has happened to birthday parties?

I suspect part of the problem is that so many of us late blooming parents work full-time, and we simply haven't the time to put together home-made party games, do all the baking, and clean the place up after the hordes have left. Renting the venue, getting it catered, and hiring the entertainment is convenient. And I'm sure, come January, the husband and I be committing some form of birthday excess, in what has clearly become the norm of the middle and upper middle classes.

My favorite party this year has been the one at a park where the mom did, in fact, make all the games (we still have the hand-decorated, personalized water bottles with the squirt tops with which we sprayed each other). If I had a little more Martha Stewart in me, I could probably get organized and "craft" a real old-fashioned, homey party like that, though I'd probably be staying up till midnight getting it all ready, and then wind up too exhausted to enjoy it. Seems like my options are that I'll either feel exhausted from trying to be Homey, Down-To-Earth Super Mom, or guilty (and out way too much money) for being Time-Starved, Throw-Money-At-The-Problem Working Mom.

But of course, the party won't be about me. My kids will enjoy whatever party we throw (well, until the inevitable meltdown as nap time approacheth). Late Blooming Mom will no doubt wind up with another case of party fatigue by year's end, but I guess it's a small price to pay for giving my kids what all kids want: just another excuse to eat cake.