Since the Girl shares her birthday with one of her friends, we decided to have a joint party and invite their entire class. Which led to me trying to entertain about 25 five and six year old's. With that volume of potential lawlessness there's quite a lot of pressure. Especially when their parents are present. Ever seen the dads on the touchline of a school football match? You'd think lives were riding on it, which sadly they occasionally are. Even something as innocent as a game of musical statues is too much responsibility for me. I mean, there's just so much riding on it.
A friend of mine booked his daughter's birthday party in June, when I last spoke to him he looked like he'd just got back from Helmand. Apparently they'd had a game of sleeping lions that continued for nearly an hour. He didn't quite have the bottle to pick anyone to be out because it kept turning into a bloodbath whenever he even looked at one of the children.
Still, as the person people volunteer for such things because "he loves kids" (note: I don't), it fell to me. It took approximately all of my life to get through the bloody thing. We then foolishly embarked on a game of pass the parcel during which I kept forgetting who I'd stopped at before. This culminated in stopping the music on someone who had apparently cheated. And it wasn't just the kids that pointed this out to me. At one point I heard one of the parents mutter "This is rigged."
We muddled through in the end, largely by bribing the children with sweets. I think I managed to get through the whole thing without risking too many death threats. I announced that everyone was a winner, there was a cheer and it was very clear that whilst everyone was a winner, I was definitely the loser.
There's no way you can have any level of interaction with a group of kids that doesn't make you look like a moron at some point.
Yeah. That's me on the right. That's exactly what I look like. So, you know, say hello when you see me in the street,
Overall the party was a success, and led to a haul of booty for the Girl that ranked just below the Brinx-Mat job. She got Frozen loom bands, Frozen puzzles, Frozen coloring books and a set of twin overhead cams for a 2006 Ford Focus with Elsa and Olaf on them. There was a time where not everything had been merchandised by Frozen, but I don't remember it clearly. That's probably due to the heavy alcohol abuse.
The unfortunate side effect of the party (and therefore her birthday) being over was that she didn't have anything to look forward to (except, like, Christmas). This has become an issue, because of late she's been struggling to get to sleep for a variety of weird and wonderful reasons.
Which can lead to the odd misunderstanding in the middle of the night when she appears in the doorway of our bedroom at three in the morning.
She sure loves Jesus, that Girl.
