To the horse farm upstairs,
I understand that your clod-hopping critters (two little boys) are young and full of life. I wouldn't dream of actually marching out my door, trudging upstairs and knocking on your door with a fervent demand for peace. I resist the urge to take my broomstick and bop my ceiling repeatedly.
I've seen you. You have to look of a woman on the edge. You scare me.
Every day I give thanks for this man:
Ross Gardner - the wonderful angel who invented foam earplugs. He is a saint and should canonized.
Dear horse farm lady upstairs. I will never confront you. Your colts are young and they need to run free.
Just the same, in my heart, the words I long to shout will be forever trapped:
SHUT THE FUCK UP!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Many folks would refuse to use earplugs and would rather just get mad.
It's been a very long time since I lived in a downstairs apartment but I'm just too old and feeble to do stairs anymore.
Thing is, I've had my ceiling cave in on me twice, in other apartments. The noise from above really works my nerves on a super-scary level.
Foam earplugs are a gift from the gods. 
Directly above me was a unit with hard wood floors and a very large dog with very long nails...
I surely have more patience for dogs than kids and refrained from marching up there to complain--but DAMN... That was a real test of my patience.. (and noise cancelling head phones did not help--glad they are helping you, though) 
...but they're enough to keep me from making regretful choices.
so a bone-shaking party banging on at 11P or 11:30P, I could cope with. But 1:30A or 2A got a bit much
Once I went upstairs around 2:30A and asked them to turn down the music. They did -- for about five minutes. So I decided it was just hopeless and took a good long walk. I think I got back around 4A. Everything was surprisingly quite, so I grabbed some shut-eye
The following afternoon, one of the party animals knocked my door and said something like, Hey, dude! You don't have to call the police on us! Just come on up and join us! In fact, I hadn't called the police on them, but I didn't see any reason to tell them that: if somebody else was complaining about their racket, why should I help them figure out who it was? So I just said, Thanks! pleasantly and sent him on his way
The next time they had a party, they invited me, and again I pleasantly thanked them. But, forewarned, I made sure I wasn't around when their party started -- and I stayed away until well after midnight. I had plenty of other stuff to do. And when I got back, it was nice and quiet
I figure somebody called the cops on them again. And I'm sure they thought it was me 