It has started. Birthday party invitations. Birthday party weekends.
The first one was about a month ago. Another little blond haired, blue eyed girl from the girls’ preschool, Kirsten, was turning four and invited the whole class to the party, with an invitation that the parents come too. It was held on a cold, grey winter’s day at a play centre on the other side of town: a couple of small rooms and a catering kitchen opening out onto a fenced area containing a playground and sandpit.
It was bedlam. After being welcomed inside and given name-tags to fill out by Kirsten’s two older brothers (aged 17 and 19; they ran the party with their parents and were great), we were greeted by the sight of about twenty five three and four year olds sticking stickers on party hats, eating party food and at intervals, joining in on the organised activities (Pass the Parcel, Duck Duck Goose etc) if they weren’t already occupied by running around in great excitement. I hadn’t brought jumpers as I’d assumed we would be inside – the girls didn’t seem to mind, though I thought that they must be cold.
The birthday cake was assembled with enough cupcakes iced with pink icing for all the children set out in the shape of a ‘4’ (I think), and there were little party bags to take home containing some fun little plastic toys and lollies which were a great hit with Rhea and Lara.
Kirsten’s mother apparently asked her teenage boys whether they remembered their four-year old birthday parties being similar. They were said to have replied that they didn’t, and moreover that an effective way of curbing the teenage pregnancy rate would be to introduce a scheme whereby teenagers were involved in running birthday parties for preschoolers.
The second birthday party was the next weekend: a ringletted, brown-haired little boy from preschool who we have known for a year or so from playgroup, Sam, was also turning four. Sam’s birthday party was being held in a child’s commercial play centre. No problems with the weather – we’d be inside. This one was really easy for the parents, we just let them loose and the teenagers who were running the party would call them in to the party room and feed them party food while the grown ups ordered coffees, chatted at our table and ate proper food (antipasto, dips etc).
Everything was arranged, even the singing of the Happy Birthday song in the party room without us. It hadn’t occurred to these teenagers that the mum who had slaved over the Spiderman cake might want to be there when the song was sung and the cake cut; but she took it with good grace in the end. Pass the Parcel was a bit of a debacle too, though the kids didn’t care: the CD player wasn’t working, and the hand-held iPhone wasn’t quite up to the job. By the time all 25 or so of the children had had a round (and prize) from the game, only a few children hadn’t wandered off and were still sitting down in the circle.
However I was very impressed with the party bags; I had had no idea that there is a whole world of companies out there that will provide party bags for birthday parties online, with sophisticated offerings like glowing light wands, colouring in exercises and the ubiquitous little plastic toys. Not a lolly in sight.
The third and fourth birthday then had had a few learnings drawn in. This was Lara and Rhea’s birthday party.
We started looking for a venue at least six weeks early, but it wasn’t early enough. The Scouts turned us down and the Kitchen party venue who also run a cooking activity only had a vacancy at 9 am on a Saturday, which was not my idea of a fun time. So we decided to have the party at our house, and to stage it with four children that the girls seemed to be friendliest with (fortunately this included Kirsten, but not Sam who was holidaying overseas anyway); with family and adult friends invited for the final hour of cake cutting and song singing.
The girls had a lovely time. After a slow start (they both hid under the piano stool and wouldn’t come out when the first two guests arrived), we eased them all in to the new environment with some print-stamping and artwork; then they were invited to eat snacks to their hearts’ content. After the fairy bread, chocolate crackles, strawberries, chips and lollies were somewhat dented, they jumped on the trampoline together, then we had sparklers outside: joy and novelty. They all found the tail on Pin the Tail on the Donkey (next time we will spin them around first) and barring a meltdown during Pass the Parcel because one guest wasn’t happy with her present, the games went pretty well.
The cake I made this year was a typewriter cake from The Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Cookbook. Unanimously chosen by the girls, and they helped me make all of it this year: cake and decoration. It wasn’t until afterwards that I worked out why this cake had appealed to them so much, and why it had appealed over the Hansel and Gretel cake that I had been looking forward to challenging myself with and that they had indicated earlier was their preference. The typewriter cake was the one that contained the most smarties (the typewriter keys). These girls are smart. Though I don’t think any of the kids, including Lara and Rhea, actually know what a typewriter is.
I was very pleased with our party bags: we provided glowing koalas or kangaroos from the Vivid Sydney light festival that Steve and I had escaped to the weekend before, sans kids (that is another story); some textured stickers; balloons; and a few lollies; all provided in some second-hand children’s paper carry bags that I had been hanging on to for ages and was really keen to get rid of.
Just like last year, I had Steve’s help just about every step of the way, from selecting the invitees, to writing and delivering the invitations, to buying the ingredients and party bag contents, to making/assembling the food, cleaning the house, and making ourselves and the girls presentable (though as mentioned above, the girls and I made the cake). Even with Steve’s help, the whole thing nearly killed me.
Just as well it’s only once a year. I can draw up all my reserves for the next one.
