"You can't come to my birthday party. Nanner, nanner, na, na!"

Oh yes, my friends, that is the ultimate statement of power the 5-7-year-old set can use. I mean really, what else have they got? I won't drive you to the mall? I'm not giving you that cute boy's phone number? Let's hope not.

The reason I bring this up is that Prince No. 3 celebrates his seventh-birthday this month. He started talking about his soiree in August until I said, "Hey, Mr. Man, Mommy's birthday is this month. Let's think about that instead, shall we?"

Well that didn't work so I finally had to say, "Look, we aren't going to talk about your special day until October." Thus began the countdown to Oct. 1. When that rolled around this week, he started planning in earnest.