Twenty-two years ago, aged 40, pre-blogging, pre-internet, when I was an early adopter with a brick for a mobile phone, I wrote this.
"You're
the best, mum!" says my ten year old son, who's scrounging in the pantry. He's just
discovered the bag of goodies I've bought for his birthday party, including
some nasty lollipops. He can't believe his luck. You see, I've ascribed an
almost satanic aura to lollipops and their power to seduce children and
seditiously rot their teeth.
Traffic light
jelly in little plastic cups is further testament to my maternal greatness, as
far as Tristan is concerned. And I must admit, there's a bit of forward planning
required, given you've got to wait for the individual layers to set. But
that's just about as far as I'm prepared to go these days.
I hate
children's parties. Well, I can hardly stand my own kids messing up my house,
let alone other people's. I've been wretched all week, living in dread of
holding the second and final children's birthday party for the year.
My daughter's
parties over the years have been only moderately more tolerable, given the sedate, self-contained nature of Bronte and her particular friends. But every year
the boys' parties threaten my sanity. Tristan and his guests savage everything and
tear around the house raising a flurry of scraps of paper, popped balloons and
plastic toy components. The most innocuous items somehow transmogrify into an
entire armoury. Amazing what they can achieve with clothes pegs, Lego and
wrapping paper after a quick hit of sugar and artificial colours.
Tristan had his
first party when he was two, the day I moved the vacuum cleaner permanently
into a corner of the lounge. I vacuumed under four toddlers' little feet
between courses of crumbly fairy cakes and hundreds and thousands sandwiches.
I'm so doubtful about my children's parties that I leave the invitations until the last
minute, hoping for a reprieve. I felt a bit guilty early this year. Only three
little misses arrived in their party clothes for Bronte's turn. Okay, so two days'
notice wasn't enough for the young socialites. Though you wonder about the child who
used the excuse that she didn't want to miss out on church. I expect my
reputation for mean parties has got around.
I plot ways
to cut corners. No time wasting on gourmet cake. It's strictly the packet
variety. Either way you end up with soggy lumps of it floating in lemonade or
covered in tomato sauce, spat out sausage roll and green jelly.
My kids'
parties are minimalist affairs. Well, as minimal as you can get without
succumbing to McDonalds, or any of those other fast food outlets. I gave in
once to a pool party at the local leisure centre, but the soggy drooping clown assigned to play watery
games with the girls was a bigger bitch that I am. Subdued children chewed bits
of cardboardy pizza while this clown frogmarched around the table glaring at
them. Woe betide any child who dared to ask for a refill of its plastic beaker
of cordial. The wet-haired kids even cleaned up the room when they'd finished.
Some parents were aghast. Not me. I was trying to pick up skills.
This year,
for Tristan's tenth birthday party, the tent's up in the back garden. Not the
marquee, the $25 plastic two man job. That's entertainment sorted. Well, as much as
we're providing.
'You're ten,'
I tell him. 'No Pass the Parcel. No mystery prizes. You can make your own fun.'
And all that in a scant two hour session.
'You've
forgotten the weenies and party pies,' says Al. 'Want me to dash out and get
them?'
'I HAVEN'T
FORGOTTEN THEM!' I scream, hurling party favours into crass 'loot' bags. Well,
I'm getting quite irritable with less than six hours until the hordes arrive.
All five of them. 'They're in at three and out at five, ,right? Well, I'm not
providing a three course meal.'
I must have
inherited my aversion for birthday parties from my mother. I'm sure I only had
one birthday party. And I can only remember that because a kid called David C
had his finger up his nose when the flash went off for the one and only black
and while photo. I was thinking my mother must have had some innate wisdom not
giving us birthday parties.
'Why didn't
you?' I asked her the other day.
'You had a
party every year, Jude,' she told me.
There's
something in that.
