Washington DC Mom Blog – A Parent in Silver Spring | » Birthday Party at the Kensington Fire House

March 22nd, 2010

Birthday parties for kids in the Washington DC area:

I receive more email questions regarding birthday parties than any other topic.

Which is why I believe this informative guest post by the engaging writer and beautiful local mom Jodi of Jodifur.com will be of supreme interest to you guys. She says that having a child’s birthday party at the Kensington Volunteer Fire Department is fabulous. However, there is no party planner or on-site coordinator. That role is left up to good ol’ mom. But the cost? Simply a donation to the very worthy men and women of the fire department. Take that Chuck E. Cheese.

My son planned his 5 year old birthday party for six months. And I’m honestly scared for his Bar Mitzvah. He kept talking about “the list” and who was on the list and what we were going to do and the favors and etc., etc. I’m not sure who this child was, but for him, his 5 year old birthday party was a very big deal.

We eventually settled on local firehouse, The Kensington Volunteer Fire Department. They allow you to use the party room if you make a donation to the firefighters. And who doesn’t like firefighters? They save your life in a fire. But I somehow missed that this meant I would be responsible for doing absolutely everything. The food, the entertainment, the favors, everything.

The week before the party was the perfect storm of crazy week at work, a crazy week at home, and out of town guests coming in for the BIG PARTY. And of course the morning of the party we were hit with torrential thunderstorms and we woke up to no power. Which in itself, was enough to make me cry having spent 4 days without power after the most recent snowstorm.

But the power came back on after 3 hours, and we managed to load all of the food and fireman hats and coloring books and balloons and cake into the car in the rainstorm, and unload it once we got to the firehouse. (So much for nice hair in pictures.) My son’s friends arrived, parents arrived, and for two hours I entertained 20 children, age 2-5.

The firemen gave a fantastic tour. The kids got to see the entire fire station and put on the fireman gear. The kids loved every minute.

Then came the mom-provided-portion of the party. The children put stickers on plastic firemen hats, colored fire related coloring books, played pin the tail on the fire dog, and of course, ate ice cream and cake. I brought all this stuff, and the setting for this theme could not have been more perfect.

And at the end of it all, my newly five year old son looked at me and said, “Mommy, it was the perfect party. I couldn’t have asked for anything better…

But what are we doing for my school party on Monday?”

Kensington Volunteer Fire Department

Child birthday parties can be scheduled for Saturdays only in the Firehouse Community Room at Station 5, located at Connecticut Avenue and Plyers Mill Road in Old Town Kensington.

For information Saturday birthday parties, call the KVFD Admin Office well in advance at (301) 929-8000.

Jodi blogs at Jodifur about being a wife, mother, attorney, and everything in between. You can also follow Jodi on twitter. A version of this post appeared on DC Metro Moms.