A Big Brother/Big Sister Party

When we had our first daughter, we invited about 40 people over to our house (mostly my parent's friends) for a meet-and-greet with the baby. We scheduled it about a month after she was born so my in laws could all fly out (the new grandparents, aunt, uncle, even great grandparents all came).

When we had our son, we had a bris (a ritual circumcision 8 days after the baby is born). We styled this as a "Big Sister Party" for our daughter, and held it at my parent's house so we didn't have to clean up. About 60 people came, including many of our friends. The grandparents and aunt and uncle all made the trip out.

When we had our third child, a daughter, we had moved into our new house only 6 months prior. So we decided to hold the "Big Brother/Big Sister Party" at our house, so it could also function as a house warming (which I was decidedly not up to when I was pregnant). We invited our family (of course), friends, and our entire religious community (about 200 families). Over 120 people came (thankfully they all fit!), and only my mother-in-law was there from my husband's side. As an aside- we live 2 miles from where I grew up, so my entire family is here, something that we are incredibly grateful for.

My three take aways from all of this:

1) It is good to focus attention on the child/children who are sentient, not on the baby who only cares about where the milk comes from.

2) In-laws won't keep flying across the country for large parties where other people want to hold "their" baby.

3) A large party is the best way to get my house clean, organized and free from all visible clutter. We should do this (without the new baby part) at least twice a year!