It's over!
We had my son's party for his 5th birthday at our house yesterday. Was a bit of a challenge getting ready for it as my husband, in his wisdom, had decided that last week would be a good week to have part of the back of the house demolished! Nevertheless after a supreme effort, we managed to get things ready at home and even had a new improved view to show off to the visiting parents (this as a result of another wall my husband saw fit to partly demolish on Friday - the day before the party!).
I had cunningly thought that by scheduling the party on Easter Saturday, I could count on at least a few of the invited guests not being able to make it but alas this was not to be! Only one little boy from J's class couldn't come at the last minute due to illness. Everyone else came and a few even brought siblings. I think we worked out that that was about 15 kids all up - not a bad effort for our tiny house. A few of the mums stayed as well but they pretty much looked after themselves, making their own coffee and hanging out on the balcony admiring the view and only intervening when it was their child causing mayhem!
Had two mega tantrums to contend with - not sure what one was about but resulted in the offender being bundled into the car and taken home. The other was towards the end of the party and started with a girl whining about the contents of her treat bag which soon developed into a full scale tantrum because the toothbrush she had got was "ugly" and she wanted one the same as her friend's one (who would have expected that cheap toothbrushes would be such a popular and controversial treat bag item)! One other little boy was so beside himself with excitement that he would break into spontaneous screams before planting big smacky kisses on J's cheek! Another little girl spent some time in the passageway pretending the to read the Turkish-English dictionary. She told me she was upset because J had been ignoring her in favour of her twin brother. It took me, J and a couple of other mothers to persuade her to come in and re-join the party.
There was a little tension during pass the parcel was as some kids wanted to hang onto the parcel until the music stopped (also found out later that treat bag tantrum girl had managed to swindle a younger child out of his prize which she claimed was "only for girls" - had previously seen the delight on this kids face when he won this particular prize - a fake My Little Pony!). Only the girls participated in the craft activity for some reason (boys off in the bedroom playing a raucous game of "dress ups"). We managed to drag the pinata activity out for a good 20 minutes AND avoid anyone getting whacked on the head so that was a bonus.
Afternoon tea went well (although the scene of devastation at the end was a sight to behold!). I had been a little worried about one of the guests being coeliac (ie, gluten intolerant). Her mum brought along a few things she could eat including a gluten free pizza base so I could make her a pizza like the ones the other kids were having. In place of a slice of birthday cake, I made her a cup of raspberry jelly which she was very pleased with especially as some of the other kids were so open in their envy of this treat (far better than birthday cake apparently). She took her time eating it, savouring every mouthful while the others looked on mournfully.
Have already told both kids that they can only have birthday parties every second year so have pretty much paid my dues for the next 24 months now. Woo hoo!
Comments