I’m typing this in my sleep as we’ve had a loooooongggg day today.
It actually started last night. Rachel was too excited to sleep and didn’t go to bed until about 9pm. This meant that we couldn’t start our preparations until then. So, by about 1am, we’d finished blowing up balloons and Sam had removed anything valuable, i.e. most of my computer stuff, and cleared the house of junk. We fell into bed just as there was
a hail storm for a few hours and the water trickled down the guttering on the wall outside our room exactly where our headboard was. The water was obviously made out of some heavy metal as it made the loudest possible noise as it trickled. I have no idea what time we fell asleep but at 6:21am, Rachel sent Joanna into our room to tell us that she
didn’t want to open her presents quietly in her bedroom like she’d asked us for, she wanted to open them with us. Much tearing of paper ensued and she seemed very pleased with all the presents she received, so a big thanks to everyone for that.
Her party started at 9:45 because the entertainer we’d hired needed to be at another job in the afternoon. This meant that, all of a sudden, the house was filled with 17 girls and their mums. I’ve never felt this outnumbered, gender-wise, since we had the rabbits.
The entertainer was great. The theme was a Disco Diva party. This meant make up and dressing up clothes plus an illuminated catwalk with commentary as the models strutted their stuff. Next followed a karaoke session and finally balloon modelling. I think this caused a few moments of concern for the boys that were invited but they were convinced that it wasn’t jewellery they were putting on but bling instead. The balloon modelling was whistlestop as the entertainer was late for her next appointment and she’d spent too much time enjoying the karaoke but she impressed us all by managing to knock out an assortment of tigers, horses, flowers and hearts for all 17 guests in the space of 5 minutes. That is an art unto itself. I think there are universities solely dedicated to balloon folding much like the staff at Lego have to go through courses on how to make round things out of square bricks.
We didn’t go overboard with party food but, thanks to Mark from the UK who was visiting the office this week, we had enough Jammie Dodgers, Iced Gems and Party Rings to feed everyone and we ordered in pizza. For anyone planning a kid’s party, pizza is the business.
Once everyone was full, we got them jumping up and down with Musical Bumps. Surprisingly, everyone kept their lunch down. After a quick round of Pin The Tail On The Donkey, which left one guest in tears as, being American, he couldn’t understand why there had to be a loser, we proceeded on to Pass The Parcel. This had been prepared by Sam a couple of days before. She’d carefully cut out wrapping paper for 17 layers with exactly the same dimensions as each other. What she’d forgotten about was that layer on layer means the parcel gets bigger each time. So, if anyone wants any presents wrapped that are 18×18 inches square, we can do 17 of them for you. 17 kids for Pass The Parcel means that it
can go on for a long time while you sort out the arguments about whether little Johnny was holding on to the parcel for a nanosecond when the music stopped and also having to explain, every time, that when the track changes, it doesn’t count as the music stopping. Again, Sam’s organization skills came to the fore and she’d provided the music stopper, i.e. the one with the volume control, a list of children so that they could tick off the names as that person unwrapped a layer. These sort of games have to planned with military precision otherwise more tears occur.
It was during this segment of the entertainment that I had to log in to a customer machine and fix a problem. I impressed everyone that I had the ability to tune out the noise and complete the task at hand.
The cake was revealed and candles were blown out. We ensured that each and every child was full to the brim with sugar and then sent them back to their parents to deal with for the rest of the afternoon.
After that, we wound down with a showing of Finding Nemo and a cup of tea and Rachel opened the presents she’d received from her guests.
A good time was had by all.
We’re still knackered though.