Car accidents, hospital stays, ensuing never-ending medical dealings, house-moving and now, the latest saga, my poor littlest darling, all 15 months of him, has had his leg – and simultaneously my heart – broken on his first day at his new day-care this week.
Ah me.
After all the drama of this year, I think we ALL needed a bit of a ridiculously elaborate celebratory bash. And, we reasoned, the 2nd littlest man’s 6th birthday seemed to qualify on both counts of:
a) peaking excitement at the entire concept of birthday-dom; and
b) potential to be remembered for the duration of said little dude’s life.
And so it was that what began as a ‘let’s just throw something together at short notice, invite a few friends over and have a few bowls of chips’ evolved into ‘let’s invite the entire neighbourhood, anybody who can come from the new school and pretty much everybody we know with small children, let’s buy a portable basketball hoop, water bombs, prizes galore, sausage rolls, chicken nuggets, platters of fine cheeses and more, let’s introduce a very loose superhero theme and last but not least, let’s spring for a freaking JUMPING CASTLE. And not just any jumping castle, mind you, but one with a shady cover, a slippery slide and a doggone PIRATE FACE, PEOPLE!’
Now, while I am never one to brag (except when discussing my sheer awesomeness), it must be said that this party completely freaking rocked. And given that I spent the majority of it carting snacks between the oven and the patio, wrestling with water-balloons that refused to stay water balloons (I mean come on, you’re a child’s play thing. If I can hold my shit together in the midst of complete chaos then what the heck is your excuse?) and trying to employ logic with sugared up pint-sized partygoers in regard to what constitutes ‘not freezing sufficiently to warrant elimination from the dance-freeze game’, that’s really sayin’ something.
Little Man all but lost his mind with the excitement of it all.
I think the moral of this story is that as parents, we have found with in ourselves some unchartered territory – the kind that goes completely over the top and here’s the clincher, actually enjoys it.
I’m serious. From now on, when it comes to parties, do not mess with us. You think I’m joking? Just try me baby. Name the time, name the place and we will be there complete with a jelly pit, sumo suits and a ghetto blaster spouting the best of The Muppets.
All that was left at the end of the day was to sit back post-clean-up, put up our feet and clink our glasses in congratulations.
That is, until Little Miss Seven came limping out of bed with those immortal words: “I threw up in my bed.”
And yes, we’re back to earth.
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