No, I don't mean balloon animals, bouncy houses, and cake. I mean throwing the kind of party you would have had you been childless, but making it kid-friendly. My wife and I recently had our annual "SausageFest", an Oktoberfest-styled party with sexual innuendo-themed games (bobbing for sausage... really?), and lots of grilled meats and beer. SausageFest last year included such highlights as the extensive collection of great beers, the revulsion of a table lined with sausage meats that have been sitting out for several hours (include here the miracle that no one had been stricken with food poisoning), and the fact that the hippie horse-shoes tournament ended in a broken window. However, this years' SausageFest had one very different element: Our 8-month old daughter, Eliza. Amazing, how a single 20 lb. person can change so much.

Number one, the party needs to start early. Taking the Nebraska-Ohio State football game into account and Eliza's sleeping schedule, we started at 1 pm. Normally it would be OK that I started drinking during set-up (circa 11 am), but given the new variable (my daughter), that's no longer the case, as I was to learn. My brother and I managed to unravel the enigma that was the 10' by 10' canopy tent in case it rained (which it did), and celebrated with a beer. After setting up in the rain, a few good samaritan friends and family arrived early to help out, take care of the baby, and cook. Great, let's have a beer!

There's a different sort of phenomenon that, now a parent, I've come to understand. That is this: people with kids bring them to functions hosted by other people with kids because, of course, we understand. Contrary to what many of the childless may think about parents with young children, they're keenly aware of their children shrieking their heads off, dumping out your belongings, and tracking dirt everywhere. Many parents specifically avoid bringing their kids to functions that might be even remotely adult, and if they can't help it, then they may actually take a sliver of pleasure from spreading the pain. So, knowing that we're now parents, for a couple of hours SausageFest looked more like the play area at the mall than an Oktoberfest party; a fact we encouraged in our invitation. It would have been fine except for one thing: there was no actual kid area.

In setting up the party, we'd not taken time to designate a clearly-defined kid play area. This meant that as the party got underway the "adult section" catering to young unmarried men with high alcohol tolerances and low verbal filters was adjacent and overlapping the "kids section" where such things as bocce ball and playing in puddles and innocently thinking about children's TV shows was the main focus. I'm absolutely sure that some poor parent had to explain to their toddler that "buttf*%@er" is not an appropriate way to greet someone. Also, that although sausage is very tasty, there's no reason for somebody to actually put one in their pants.

Alas, as the party wound down and I realized that I was guilty of excessive celebration (in addition to incredibly poor party design), and that I'd hardly seen my daughter all day. My wife, on the other hand, had been with her almost all day and had mostly stayed in the house where kids were being corralled in the livingroom (that was a state-of-the-union conversation of which I was on the losing side). I understand that these kinds of mistakes are going to be part and parcel of fatherhood going forward; learning opportunities for the . So, young dads looking forward to your favorite activities when you were a non-parent, just remember these lessons:

• as another seasoned dad related to me on the topic of day-long celebration, "it's a marathon, not a sprint"
• clearly define the adult and kiddie sections, preferably with a soundproof wall between
• know that anything you try to do will take twice as long and feel like three times as much work
• which means, in part, that those kinds of things aren't nearly as important to you anymore
• because, the family comes first

That said, party on! (in moderation and quietly)