Party planning woes

Sofia's birthday is coming up soon... and I should be happy and excited to celebrate another wonderful year with my precious little girl... so why do I feel anxiety and dread??? Because I am planning a birthday party! This is where the introvert in me comes out.. or is it.. "in"? If it were solely up to me, I'd have some yummy, gluttonous cupcakes, a few presents celebrated at home with only family and one of Sofia's friends and then go to the playground to work off the sugar... but of course life is never this simple. We can't really invite people over for any kind of get together yet, because well.. one, we don't have much furniture for anyone to sit on yet, and two, our place is small. Which leaves me with having the party somewhere else... which, unfortunately for a San Franciscan newbie like myself, has proven to be an impossible feat. To reserve most reasonably priced places for a party or even a section of a park, you have to beat all the other moms who, unlike yours truly, booked waaaaaay in advance (like 6 months in advance to be exact!).

Don't worry... there is a "but" to this story... BUT I managed to find a placed called Fairyland which seems to be really nice. So now the dilemma is... do I still only invite a few of Sofia's friends or would it be more fun with all her friends from her class? And if I only invite some and not others, will that get Sofia into trouble when the uninvited kids hear about the party that they weren't invited to after the fact?

When I ask Sofia, "so who are your closest friends at school?" the list changes every time. And then when I go down a list and ask her to tell me who she wants to invite... she invariably wants to invite EVERYONE. So, I've just taken the responsiblity of making the final decision which is.... drumroll please... invite only the girls from her class (hoping that only 4 out of the 10 say they are coming!) :) As an introvert, the whole process of inviting people, entertaining people, etc is not something that is totally enjoyable for me. It's actually pretty stressful. If it were a very small group and I didn't have to worry about too many logistics and the kids could just play and then have some cake, that would be GREAT. So, let's just hope that my last minute invites narrow down the list to just a few ;-) I'm so bad, but here's to hoping!