Ok so have you seen those videos on social media of people taping glow sticks to themselves, turning the lights off, and dancing around? I had in passing, but I didn’t think too much of it… Until my sister-in-law requested we make one… When she asked, I thought in the most novice way possible: Sure! Why not? How hard could it be? I obviously hadn’t even considered the idea of trying to crack 100 glow sticks with the help of a toddler.

But a week later 100 glow sticks showed up on our door step among other exciting treasures my kid’s aunt had sent us and my husband and I decided to undergo the seemingly “fun” and “simple” task.

To start off we simply asked the kids if they wanted to have a glow stick dance party and we immediately received mixed reviews from exuberance from the toddler, to a million questions from the 6 year old and a flat out (yelled) No from Mr. L.

But that didn’t stop us, after all Michael and I had survived morning sickness AND potty training 3 times, how hard could a few glow sticks be? Well for starters we didn’t take into consideration what time the kids went to bed in conjunction with the setting of the sun… In other words we needed it to be dark, but the sun currently sets later then bedtime routine starts, and we don’t have a basement… So we had to tape the curtains close, and we had to tape a hand towel over a higher window AND Michael still had to hold up a quilt to make it dark enough.

But going back to the glow sticks and convincing Mr. L that it wasn’t the worst idea on the planet. It took me close to an hour to crack all the glow sticks while my husband Mr. Awesome made dinner, I persuaded our oldest to come out of hiding, Little Miss A kept helping by spreading the sticks everywhere and attempting to hide many, helping feed the kiddos, thinking up music that Mr. L might be persuaded to stick around for, and let Mr. L make designs with said sticks!

Winning ideas to get our oldest on board:

• 1- Have him watch YouTube videos of others dancing with glow sticks taped on them.
• 2- Pixar Cars music
• 3- Include centaur stomping (Thanks Disney and Pixar’s Onward movie)

So after coming up with a simple routine (By the way I was never in dance), picking music, teaching the kids, discovering that Mr. Awesome wouldn’t get to perform because he had to hold up the blanket, all the sticks were glowing, all the children were convinced to give it a go, and darker clothes had been put on… We needed to tape sticks onto three wiggly kids who kept running into each other and making their luminous twigs fall off.

But with much patience, smiles, and repeating the same song over and over we pulled off a basic, amateur night time performance around 7pm. The only downfall was that Little Miss A refused dark clothes and didn’t like how the glow sticks felt tape on, so after many attempts we realized we were not going to get past one single stick fastened to the youngest. Turns out though, she didn’t mind sitting this unusual family activity out.

Turns out the video was a success and everyone including the teachers we sent it to, just loved it! But lesson learned and we probably won’t be attempting that stunt again for a few years 😂

Have you ever put on a kid friendly glow stick party? Tell us about it in the comments below and don’t forget to like, follow, and share 💙🧩🌼

Similar posts: I Don’t Wonder Why, 10 things I love about my son’s autism