Family parties: Fun? Yes. Bone tiring? Also yes.

Once our youngest, Jack, finished high school, I figured Terry and I had thrown our last graduation party.

Then our daughter Chloe got her PhD and we (very happily) hosted a celebration for her with 70+ guests.

That's when I was reminded how much work goes into making one of these little soirees happen.

Most of the burden falls on my hero of a wife, who plans these things, does the cooking, directs set-up and clean-up, and basically makes the whole event fun for everyone involved.

I'm usually working to pay for the whole thing in the days leading up to these parties, but on P-Day, I go hard.

There are chairs and tables to carry outside. Garbage and recyclables to collect and throw away. Party supplies to bring down from above the garage and set up.

And dishes to wash. Lots and lots of dishes to wash.

Since I don't cook, it's mostly my job to ensure every pot, pan, plate, spoon and Tupperware container is washed, dried and put away.

This is fine in the hours leading up to the party as Terry preps the food, because I have energy then.

It's exhausting when the party is over and the sink is overflowing with items that need to be handwashed.

"Just leave them until the next day," you might say.

I can't. I just can't.

I cannot go to bed with dishes sitting in the sink. I'm simply incapable.

The price to be paid for this compulsion is having to scrub sauce-encrusted slow cookers and bowls of sticky, cold noodles when all I want is to take a shower and crawl into bed.

The menu for Chloe's party featured various pastas, sauces and meatballs. Terry had bleached our kitchen sink a sparkly white a few days before, but by the time my late-night handwashing spree was over, that sink was stained tomato red.

That's not to mention all of the garbage we collected and bagged after the guests had left, and the dozens of cans and bottles destined for the recycling truck that had to be rounded up and taken out.

The next day, Terry, Jack and I finished clean-up by bringing in the folding chairs and tables and emptying out the beverage coolers...all in the middle of an unusually hot and humid mid-September afternoon.

We were beat.

The thing is, though, for all the effort we put in before and after, the party itself was so much fun. It was great connecting with family and friends and meeting some of Chloe's grad school buddies.

We built a fire and roasted marshmallows. Our cornhole set got plenty of use. People clearly enjoyed coming together and celebrating my little Dr. Chloe Edmonds.

Speaking of whom, Chloe now plans to attend medical school. Once she graduates, I might suggest we bring everyone together to celebrate at the local Chuck E. Cheese.

Chuck and his animatronic band can do the cooking and cleaning for that party, as far as I'm concerned.

The official summertime uniform of the Midwest suburban dad

We never got together and formally ratified this (there are, after all, probably a few million of us), but somehow, collectively, many of us non-coastal, suburb-living dads have made a decision.

We have silently agreed that we're all wearing pretty much the same thing to the graduation parties, barbeques, and other soirees to which we and our wives are invited each year in June, July and August.

The designated uniform is this:

• A solid-colored polo shirt (POTENTIAL FANCY VARIATIONS: A short-sleeve button-down with a semi-daring pattern, or perhaps even a polo with multiple shades...scandalous!)
  
  
• Khaki shorts (POTENTIAL FANCY VARIATIONS: None. You'll wear the khaki shorts and like it, though some of the more daring will perhaps opt for darker shades.)
  
  
• Deck shoes with short (hopefully no more than ankle-length, but preferably no-show) socks (POTENTIAL FANCY VARIATIONS: I guess you can wear some nice sneakers, you slob.)

There are exceptions to this, of course, and quite a few of them. Many more dads have real fashion sense than you might realize, but the rest of us are going with the ensemble described above. It works, it's comfortable, and it requires very little forethought.

I do have a few short-sleeve button-downs I'll break out for especially momentous summertime occasions, but for the most part, it's polo-khakis-boat shoes for me, brother.

Dads, if you and I are at the same grad party, and I see you across the room as I'm filling my plate with potato salad and pulled pork, and you're sporting this dad uniform, I will tip my bottled water at you in a gesture of solidarity.

Then I will walk over, discern whether you are a Tool Guy, a Car Guy, or a Sports Guy, and engage you in relevant small talk until it's time for my wife and I to leave.

This is the suburban dad lifestyle. Embrace it.

Can we keep our yard at graduation party levels of nice?

Not our yard. Or our house. Or our car. In case you were wondering.

We recently held Jack's graduation party. That evening, after much of the clean-up was finished, I fell into a chair and said to Terry, "I have an idea...let's never do this again."

Which of course we won't, since Jack is our youngest. Oh, if/when we have grandchildren and they have their own grad parties, we'll help in every way possible.

But never again will we be in charge of the preparations, and that's a good thing.

Grad parties are exhausting, and not just on party day itself. The prep takes weeks. The clean-up takes days.

Here's the one upside of hosting a grad party at your house, though: Your yard has never looked so nice.

Jack's party was in mid-June. Starting in mid-May, we weeded, power washed, mulched, mowed, trimmed and generally transformed our property into something presentable.

Not Yard of the Year presentable, but certainly grad party-worthy.

The question is, are we going to do what's necessarily to maintain it?

Summers are busy for us, and there are going to be stretches when we're simply not home.

On the other hand, life is so much simpler the following year if you keep up with yardwork the summer before.

The smart money says we'll keep it looking good for maybe a year.

Check back with me in summer 2024.

Your kid's graduation party: Money for them, a nice yard for you

Tomorrow we're supposed to have Chloe's graduation party, and we're following the standard formula:

• Hold it on a summer Saturday afternoon? Check.
• Set up a canopy/tent in the backyard and invite people to come over any time they'd like throughout the day? Check.
• Work our fingers to the bone in the days leading up the party to make sure the house and the yard are semi-presentable? Yeah, check.

This is the second graduation party we've held in our family, and as was the case with Elissa's shindig back in 2012, I took a few days off work this week to help with the preparations.

We've been doing all sorts of things to get ready, most of which are intended not to enhance the experience and enjoyment of our guests, but to make it so that they don't laugh at us when they see what passes for our "landscaping."

Like mulching, for instance. From time to time we like to mulch our various flower beds. We should be doing this every year, but if I'm being honest, I'll tell you the last time we mulched before now was...Elissa's graduation party in 2012.

Give us a break, we're busy people!

We're also power-washing the deck, killing weeds, washing floors and bathrooms, running our string trimmer to the point of exhaustion, etc. Then there's the cooking and general food prep, which Terry is handling like a champ. She is fast becoming the Master Chef of grad parties.

As for the party itself, it will be a run-of-the-mill affair with food eaten off of (nice) paper plates, extended conversations with people we haven't seen in ages, and graceful acceptance of monetary gifts by Chloe.

Because that's what you do when it's high school graduation time, right? You celebrate the student's success (a relative term) by giving them money. I always thought this was a strange tradition until I had my own graduation party 27 years ago and walked away with armfuls of cash. Then I thought it was a GREAT tradition.

Oh, and she'll get cards, too. They'll essentially be the same four cards purchased from CVS at the last minute, but still, cards are nice.

Then, after it's all over and Chloe is sifting through her piles of checks and currency, I'll be outside cleaning up. Because that's my role: I get stuff ready, and then I put it all away when we're finished with it. I am Dad. Hear me roar.

If I'm extra good, Terry will let me have a piece of graduation cake, too, which is my favorite part. Well, that and the mulch. Those flower beds look awesome right now.