So good to see you back HK.

Ferg. Take her. Stay.

Reasons: it's her friend and it's a birthdays. At this age they've not done a whole lot of birthdays so every one of them is special (not like with us, who can't even count our birthdays on both hands and both feet any more). And every party opportunity lost feels like a devastating thing, starting just about now for your daughter. She's at the age where you're no longer dragging her to these things and she's actually looking forward to them. For the next 15 years, every time her friends have fun and she is missing, she's going to resent it. So take her.

The reason you should stay: You need these people to think of you as a parent in your own right. You probably are not friends with a lot of your daughter's friends' parents. You've admitted that you were previously too involved with work to pay attention to the homefront. And so now is your time to create relationships with people who are going to be your homefront. These people don't dislike you, they simply don't know you... and probably visa versa. My husband is not particularly in love with his ex's friends, but she has made a point of making closest friends with people whose kids she wants the kids spending most of their time with. She sets it up so that her best friends have kids their ages. These people have heard all the trash about my husband that she could dish out. (it hurts the kids for other adults they come into contact with regularly to have a negative opinion of him). He'd have been smarter to spend more time with them rather than allow her to be the only influence on them. It's not necessarily comfortable at first with people you don't know, where the only thing in common is the kids, but you don't have to be best pals with these people, just comfortable enough to ask them over to YOUR house for ice cream when YOUR daughter's birthday arrives. You're used to having lots of contact with work mates but not a whole lot of contact with the neighbors... it's easy to get comfortable with that, but for your daughter's sake you need to broaden your horizons... find people you can chat with at the ballet recitals & softball games and birthday parties... like I said, you don't have to be thier best friends, but recognizing them and remembering thier names and occupations helps.

Once you break the ice, you might find some of these people like you. My husband has started to realize that hsi ex has burned her bridges with some of the kids' friends' parents... and it's interesting that these other kids' parents are gravitating to him, chatting with him during games, etc. It's not like we're all meeting for pizza & movies on Saturday nights... but at least it's no longer an uncomfortable feeling to go to the kids' events and see people looking at us like they wonder if the latest gossip she's reported about us is true. And the kids are happy to see thier Dad at these events even if they're not allowed to come say "hi" when their mother is with them (she's that jealous... it's wierd... it's no real rule, but they certainly know how upset she gets, and she always finds some way to make them feel bad if they have any fun with their dad).

You want to set things up in a way that you do not have to live the next 15 years in an uncomfortable situation the way my husband is having to spend his next few years (kids are a lot older). So go... talk to the parents... eat the ice cream. And get their addresses so you can invite them to the party for her at your house when the time comes (since her mother is doing a larger party, you do a smaller thing at Chuck-E-Cheese with JUST the one friend, that friend's parents and no gifts expected from the friend.