It’s June, and that means it’s a busy month with a birthday party scheduled. What is involved is this: agreeing on a suitable indoor party venue from a suggested shortlist; selecting guests; selecting and personalizing invitations from a party-invitation-card website; addressing invitations; distributing invitations; negotiating birthday cake possibilities; keeping track of RSVPs; adding supplementary invitees if numbers permit; shopping for the cake; delegating the baking of the cake to partner.
The day before the party there is the haircut treat in which my longstanding hairdresser inquires what I am putting in the party bags, prompting shopping for party bag treats as I had forgotten about party bags completely; collection of party bags from spare cupboard for housing said treats; meltdowns because this assortment of paper party bags is neither matching nor small enough; division of the loot; filling of the bags; and partner baking the cake with advice from self.
The day of the party there is the partner’s resolving of the party bag issue through an additional dedicated shopping trip with the girls; the three hours of cake decoration needed to decorate the cake (the Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book’s Train cake was chosen for the second time in nine years); the gathering of the party bags and enough warm clothes to brave the weather; and packing assorted smarties; licorice; paddle pops; chocolate wheels; popcorn; pipe cleaners and scissors needed for the final cake assembly at the venue.
The party itself is manageable, being outsourced to a party company and this year involving party food in a converted train carriage followed by animal petting; games; cake and a children’s train ride. Chatting to parents is required. Two stay: one father who has brought his older and younger children as well as the invited child; and a mother who outlines her dissatisfaction with a teacher whose behavior involves familiarizing her year one students with the term ‘idiot’ and shouting at the children in class. We nibble on the vegetarian adult platter we had ordered as she talks, later sipping coffees and hot chocolate as the children play hide-and-seek and sack races in the cold sunshine outside.
The train ride is fun but I make the mistake of suggesting that Lara substitutes at the first stop for one of her friends who was sitting beside the driver. This is fine, but means that by the time we finish the ride, Rhea hasn’t had a go sitting there. She is furious. The friend and her parents linger after the party, trying to placate Rhea, and luckily there is another train ride in which she is allowed to sit in the front, which resolves her mood.
It’s overcast again by now. We collect up the remains of the cake. The teenagers who had been looking after us have already distributed their own party bags and thrown away large quantities of leftover smarties and popcorn, not to mention most of the adult food which wasn’t consumed. But we all agree it was a good day and the girls and their friends enjoyed it overall.
For the second year in a row, Maggie had hosted the girls’ family birthday lunch on the day of their birthday a week before, saving me having to repeat the above ordeal a second time. Nevertheless I still develop a cold and am close to complete burnout at the end of the two-week party season, which coincided with many long hours at work trying to meet project deadlines for 1 July.
Did I mention I’m looking forward to our NZ holiday next week?
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