Secret Agent Birthday Party

We celebrated H's 9th birthday earlier in the month. We threw him a Secret Agent birthday party at home. But before I get to the party details I need to do a mini rant.

This was the tenth kids birthday party we have thrown. This includes parties at home and at venues. Never ever had we had a more horrid experience with the kids and the party then we had with this particular party. We had a total of eight children in attendance, all third graders. We had set up stations and created puzzles and codes and most of these kids struggled with these missions. They couldn't follow directions, a few of them couldn't read the larger words, they struggled to put together the most basic puzzles and instead only wanted to wrestle and smack each other in the bums and trash the house. We were appalled.

We tried to make the best of the situation but it's not even about the party.. these kids are our future. They are being raised in a world where sports are more important than school, screens are more important than books. No manners and some of the words I heard coming out of their mouths.. highly inappropriate!

Rant complete.

Upon arrival we had set up a check in station.

Each child picked up a piece of paper from each bowl, a noun and an adjective and that would be their secret agent name, likey sneaky octopus. They were each given a badge to wear and then could choose a mustache for their disguise. It was smooth sailing till now.

I informed then that 'since they were the best of the best they had been chosen to be part of this elite secret agent training camp' you know Top Gun style. I also informed them that it was not a race so they did not have to run, push or shove but it was also a 'secret' mission so don't go blurting the answers out loud. 

MISSION ONE 

80% of the kids could not put the puzzle together. So I had to assist them because the few kids who did manage to solve it were moving ahead too fast. The ones that did solve it did not understand what object they had to find and then of course there was our completely moronic idea to use shredded paper to fill the yellow bin. We had a plastic tablecloth underneath it but the kids just dumped the whole thing over and practically rolled around in it. And so the disaster begins.

MISSION TWO

Once they found their object.. which again many didn't but other kids had and it wasn't really a close call.. some kids were so far behind that they were still making their puzzles.

Anyway.. mission two was a maze. 

The first few who completed the maze shouted out the answer which was upstairs and then everyone ran up the stairs.

While the kids were completing the earlier mission D and set up obstacles on the stairs.

Then they had to maneuver through a laser maze to get the next clue. This was the one time where all of them tried to wait in a line for their turn and tried to get through the lasers without wrecking it for those behind them. 

MISSION THREE

No one understood this. There was a mirror right there. I felt bad for H (all the missions were a surprise to him as well and he would just be finished and having to wait and wait until his friends caught up with him, most didn't and we had to just let them move ahead) There were a few kids who struggled with reading the word 'reflection' and many others who still didn't understand they had to look in a mirror. Idk.. were these activities too hard for third graders? I had thrown D an Amazing Race party when he turned 9 and the kids did not struggle this much. 

MISSION FOUR

The next mission was to test their observation skills. Also it was created for all the kids to get to the same level and get a chance for everyone to catch their breaths. 

They had to observe the items on the tray. I switched the green alien on the left for a red alien. Many of them had already lost interest by this point and only wanted to wrestle with each other and try to kick each other in the crotch. (am I right to sit H down and talk to him about his poor choice of friends?) 

The bad behavior of some kids was affecting the few kids who wanted to complete the mission. Once they answered correctly they got the next envelope. Most didn't, someone said the answer out loud..more chaos ensued. 

MISSION FIVE

It was a color decoder. The red film helps you read the blue message. Again, no one cared, no one read the message.. I helped some of the kids who seemed interested but weren't bright enough to figure it out on their own. (I am sorry for the kid bashing.. I hate and don't want to do it but I was just disappointed at their levels of intelligence. Again I know.. horrible thing to same but.. ugh!!)

MISSION SIX

In the other room M was releasing the almost 80 balloons we had spent many hours blowing up. The mission was to pop the balloons until they find the hidden message. 

But one kid had the brilliant idea of popping them with a pencil so he basically just popped all the balloons in seconds. While it was smart it wasn't fun for so many of the kids who didn't get to pop a single balloon. No one was looking for the roll of paper I had hidden inside a handful of balloons. 

So many of them got to pop no balloons. We had to help them find the rolls of paper. Inside was a morse code message.

MISSION SEVEN

Solve the code.

This mission slowed them all down a bit but most of them did not understand what the task was. Many just filled in the blanks with the alphabet.. some were doing it upside down.. we had to again walk many kids through the process. 

The code read - Up the ladder and into the tree house awaits your last clue

MISSION EIGHT

Okay, so I'll admit we have a really cool basement. It was easy to get distracted. The kids just wanted to have fun.. and I wasn't going to be the person who stops the fun. Instead of all the kids going up the rope ladder no one went up the rope ladder. One kid did eventually go up the wooden ladder and threw the clue to the floor, scattering all the pages inside.

The mission was to have all the kids work together for once.. because sometimes even agents need help. 

The kids had to put the words together to read ' CONGRATULATIONS TRAINING COMPLETE' which they did do eventually and then we had pizza. 

When the kids were just about finished eating a loud buzzer rang.. there was a note from Dr. Evil who had come and stole all their goodie bags!

The kids (there were only 2 or 3 left who were still interested) had to solve a set of puzzles to find the combination that would open the lock and release their goodies. 

After coloring the boxes according the the coordinates given they found 3 numbers. That gave them 6 possible combinations to open the lock.

Inside the box were their goodie bags.. a Secret Agent themed book. 

Finally it was time for cake.

As per tradition we bought a plain white cake from Wegmans and decorated it ourselves. It was our first time using fondant.

I think we did a pretty decent job. 

What the basement looked like after the party.. 

In the end the kids had fun, they raved about how crazy fun the party was the next day.. so I guess that's better than a boring party. H has one more party to go.. the big 1-0 and then this mama is officially retiring.  

        

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