Robyn's 7th birthday is coming up (in June). For the last three years, I have had an unwritten rule that we don't much discuss the Birthday Party until the start of the preceding month. (The day after her fourth birthday party she wanted to start planning the next one.)

Anyway, we're now in May and fully into legitimate party discussion mode. This is Serious Business. She wants to have an Amazing Race party (being a fan herself). I'm hoping this will work out. I'm not sure whether other kids her age watch the show, but hopefully it will work anyway. We were chatting about possible challenges while going around the supermarket on Saturday and while going down the sweet aisle I suggested one of the roadblocks could be to stop and make a smor. Then I suggested another one could be having to eat something really gross. Robyn's eyes lit up. "Yes!" she said, and thought for a second. "Cottage pie!"

The rewards of cooking for one's family.

I'm getting excited about this party too now. I'm going to have not to tell her about the rest of the roadblocks or detours though, otherwise she'll have a bit of an advantage. I'm thinking there will have to be a helpful adult (you know who you are) at each clue stop to help some of the kids read the clues and directions. And to balance the winnning and prizes thing, perhaps have a number of different prizes of similar size and child appeal and then allow the first team to choose first, second team to choose second, and so on. And have a few more prizes than kids so that all get to choose what they like to some extent.