Firefly, Not the Series

In an effort to ensure that my daughter has a memorable birthday party, I'm contemplating the concept of capturing and breeding fireflies.

You see, your kid's birthday party is an opportunity to show everyone:

1. How cool and fun your kid is
2. How cool and fun you are
3. That you are a creative, involved parent with good taste
4. That even if you aren't going to spring for the big ticket performer/zoologist/mime/freaky clown with balloons, your kid's party is still the bomb diggety.

So I went to Michael's Craft Store - an alarmingly long 20 minute drive I might add - and scoured the aisles for the supplies necessary to make custom firefly jars. We're doing an "Almost Sleepover" theme. The kids will arrive at 6pm, we'll load them up with cake and ice cream, glue tissue paper onto bell jars, capture fireflies in the now customized bell jars, and then hang out and tell stories in the tent outside (which we have yet to find... we're sitting at 99.9% unpacked, and of course the tent isn't quite identified as having survived The Move). The part that all the kids are going to love is that they show up in their PJ's. Could it get any cuter? I ask you.

Anyway, tonight, while sipping some Red Zin (Zen of Zin), I asked my husband if he thought there would be enough fireflies for our firefly catching activity. He questioned whether or not they'll be in season in mid-August. The type A in me had to resist the urge to rip open a full scale research project to identify the probability that, in all likelihood, we'll be making firefly homes and have no fireflies.

Maybe those other over-achieving parents are onto something, it would have been easier and less stressful to spring for the performance artist. I could have had him show up dressed as a firefly.