Officially teenagers! This June, the girls’ birthday was marked, cheered, noticed and celebrated by clusters of friends and family.
First the birthday phone calls from Steve’s family interstate. They had banded together to buy the girls some ear pods that they really wanted, and ski pants.
My old friend Alice came all the way from Adelaide, with her support worker Daisy, for the whole birthday week. They stayed nearby and had a few meals with us as well as the birthday afternoon tea and an afternoon out shopping for CDs. ‘I like her, she’s funny’, said Lara after Alice left the first night after dinner. The girls hadn’t seen her since we visited Adelaide together when they were seven. We played some new card games together: Skip Bo and Phase 10, and at their birthday afternoon tea Alice and Daisy gave the girls a present of a box of each card game, a giant singing card each, and a card for me.
Rhea had her sleepover with friends at home last weekend. After demolishing an extensive selection of lollies set out in a row of containers on the desk; munching happily through some dominos pizzas accompanied by garlic bread and soft drinks; making a dent in a red velvet packet cake that Rhea and I put together an hour before the friends’ arrival; and bumbling around in a game of tips in the dark; they eventually crashed out on all the spare mattresses in the TV room, except Lara who slept in her bed. Steve made them pancakes for breakfast in the morning.
All of the village who have helped raise the girls and support us were at the family-and-friend afternoon tea that afternoon:
– Helen, who used to come with me to an art gallery every Tuesday with the girls when they were toddlers, and her husband;
– Di, who used to look after them one morning a week with mum, and her husband;
– mum and dad, who continue to support us and the girls every week; and
– Heidi, who was their nanny from the age of one until COVID-19 put a stop to after school activities, attending with her little one now aged four.
Mum brought tiny pikelets with smoked salmon and sour cream and I made Jamie Oliver’s chocolate party cake with embedded sliced almonds this time, topped with fresh rasberries and served with whipped cream. Helen had delivered 20 chocolate muffins for the girls to share with their friends earlier in the week, which stood us in good stead for all three of the parties.
Finally, Lara had her sleepover last night. This was held at an airBnB located 15 minutes away. We breached the agreement in holding a party there (‘NO PARTIES OR GATHERINGS’), and we were a little nervous about the fact that the house was upstairs from a semi-detached house next door. We worried that we might give ourselves away with all the squealing. This party was similar to Rhea’s, but with different friends. Topics of conversation included favourite and least favourite teachers, a boy called Dylan, practical communication about who would sleep where, and general discussion about issues with periods. The girls congregated in one of the bedrooms for some of the time, with up to eight of them occupying a space of one by two metres around their entertainment devices. They settled down for bed before 11pm. Lara said it was around 2am that I returned to the living area to tell them to stop talking and go to sleep.
I did manage to have a shower in the morning before swinging in to full time pancake and tea making. The girls organised themselves without being asked to return the mattresses and doonas to the respective bedrooms, and had all been fed and watered when the first parent arrived at 9am. He removed his shoes at the door and followed me upstairs to the living area, where he took one look at the mess generated by ten girls buzzing around and said he’d wait in the car. The other parents soon followed, except for two whose daughters had arranged to go in to town with Lara to do some shopping and have lunch at Maccas.
Lara and Rhea were delighted with their makeup, vouchers, earrings (including from London bought by mum), Japanese T shirts and paper/pens, phone case (Rhea), airpods, pens, cat-themed tea towel, sunglasses (Lara), lollies, chocolates, and other assorted items. They loved the parties, the company of Alice and Daisy, and the afternoon tea. And now the birthday week is over.
I will have a good rest in my own bed tonight. Just one busy working week to go, then I’m having a week off in Victoria as part of the school holidays. I’m intending to relax.
