Party Girls

Birthday parties.

I love ‘em! Despite not being able to believe that little CK is one already I was proud to see my daughter throwing herself into our birthday party tradition. I always threw great childrens’ parties and the only bit of them which I disliked was going to the supermarket where I would slink guiltily out with a trolley full of synthetic potato based, e-number filled, products nestling next to a sugar overload of chocolate flavoured naughties with which, once a year, my children were allowed to fill their glowing little faces.

For CK it was going to be a fancy dress party and as the little guests only had about ten teeth between them, my daughter sensibly decided to give the adults cake and champagne and leave CKs’ peers to crawl about picking up what crumbs they could find.

The cake was going to be a fairy tale castle – ummm, a bit ambitious for a first attempt? Not at all, it was a triumph of leaning towers and wobbling marshmallows secretly held together with a skeleton of long wooden kebab sticks. Maybe it did look a bit more Gormenghast than Cinderella but after a few glasses of bubbly, who cared?

Gramps and I stuck lots of pictures of little CK on to four pieces of thin card, pleated them up and pinned them on – CKs’ biggest fans! CK and her parents went as aliens. Mr. CK had spent many hours fitting his cycle helmets with articulated protuberances with large eyes on their ends and little CK was mystified by being bundled into a green dressing gown with eyes on stalks waving over her head; but she didn’t care, there were cake crumbs to hunt down!

I can’t wait for next year ………..

Granny Bloggings

Things what I 'ave learned about throwing a 1 year olds birthday party:

1. Don't bother - she will probably not be enjoying it as much as you are and will just be wondering who all these people are and why they are all singing at her.

2. If you ignore 1 and do go ahead regardless, make it fancy dress. Every party is more fun when you can make a fool of yourself - trust me, I elected to wear a prosthetic, prehensile extra limb attached to my head for CK's party and made my darling hubby do the same. No they weren't penises, yes we were supposed to be aliens.

3. Get LOTS of toys in - means you don't have to bother with organising any entertainment which, lets face it, the 1 year olds can't understand, and the parents would rather not have to partake in.

4. If you do a pass the parcel don't tell your lovely father to "Keep adding layers! No, 20 isn't enough!". Honestly, about 3/4 layers of wrapping will do for a party of 20 kids - they are way slow at unwrapping and no-one wants to spend half the party sitting in a circle listening to 'The Wheels on the Bus' - do they?!

5. Get plenty of booze in - see Granny Bloggings post.

6. Be ambitious with your cake - it will give you something to bond with your mother about and will really frighten, erm I mean fire the imaginations, of any guests with upcoming birthday shindigs of their own. Or at least, if it doesn't quite come out how you intended, it will be a talking point :)

7. Draft in some eager staff - husbands, mothers, wives, father in laws, basically anyone who will work for cake.

8. Remember that there are going to be lots more of these to come so you don't have to pull out all the stops every year (unless you live in Essex, where it seems to me, children's parties are becoming a new sport)

9. Try not to take the wrong child home with you - even though they are all in costume, you don't get to take the cutest, just the one who belongs to you.

10. Clear your diary for the next week/month/year to recover!

Mummatron