Monster & Teeny

This week was pretty much a six day count-down to Monster’s birthday party on the Saturday. It is actually his birthday on 14th but his party was in advance on the 9th and we had about 50 guests. So it took plenty of preparation! Most of the planning and the actual party was Monster’s ideas with my facilitation - pretty much the recipe for our educational / parenting / life style actually. I was very proud of how much thought he put into it and what a success it was on the day.

Monday - We started the day with the sad news about Steve Irwin. He has long been something of an idol to Monster who loved to watch him on Croc Files and various other TV shows and was someone he often refered to.

Later in the morning we went off to the supermarket for various party preparation supplies. Teeny was not behaving particularly well so I told her that the sweets they’d been told they could choose if they were good all the way round the supermarket would not be coming her way any more. Monster listened and then announced that he would choose something that she liked too and share it with her. Awww! Needless to say they both ended up with something after that heartwarming display of sibling love.

Once home I got on with sorting out the goody bags and decorating a T shirt each for them to wear to the party while they were packed off upstairs to play. I peeked in at them at one point to see Teeny sat with a huge pile of Mr Men books and Monster playing with his V Tech laptop toy. He’d come down earlier to tell me he’d been playing a game on it called ’silly sentences’ with things like ‘the car jumped over the elephant’.

Tuesday - last day of the summer holidays around here so we met up with our friends Mel, L and L. L started preschool and L went back into year 2 the following day. In the morning Monster and Teeny had been bouncing on their space hoppers while watching a dinosaur dvd while I started the baking for the party with some cakes and biscuits. Then we headed off with a picnic lunch to meet Mel at a local park with playground, boating lake, miniature train etc. We had a play in the playground for a while, then lunch and the children had a clamber on some rocks before we all had a go on the train. L and Monster were very impressed with an older boy (about 10 I guess) who raced the train and ran around the whole boating lake infront of it. Actually so was I! They wanted to try it too but we distracted them with ice-creams. Then a final play in the playground before heading for home.

Wednesday - further frantic party preparation in the morning with us making banners and posters to decorate the hall with. I had ordered the Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Were-Rabbit original soundtrack as an early birthday gift for Monster and to be used at the party so that was played several times while the children danced, identifyed which musical instruments were playing and discussed which bit of the film the music was from. We have several soundtracks to their favourite films and they have often spent long car journeys doing this. It has given them both a pretty good ear for what instrument is playing, what mood or event the music is suggesting and of course the ability to shut up and listen!

Then we headed off to the park with lunch to meet Lucy, R and R who were already there. We didn’t last long there this week as all four children were in the mood for wandering and exploring rather than staying put in the playground -frequently all four of them in different directions! So we all went back to ours for a while instead.

An early night for Monster and Teeny and with A away I was left in peace to watch a very chick-flick film, bake the two birthday cakes for the party and finish off the goody bags. The goody bags were probably the biggest hassle of the whole party for me and I will be taking the sound advice of others for subsequent parties not to bother !

Thursday - A run around sort of a morning with us heading to the venue for the party to collect keys and finalise arrangements, off to collect a large Susumama order for myself and various friends (do go and check out the website - I’ll be doing another order in November )  and then ending up at Ali’s for playing, chatting and lunch. It’s been way too long since we’ve seen Ali for various reasons so it was lovely to catch up properly. Teeny had her first ever go on an X Box (one will be entering the house as part of Monster’s birthday presents so I guess it won’t be long before she’s an expert!). I decorated the cakes and my Mum called round to deliver four pairs of trousers for our The Wrong Trousers party game.

Friday - In the morning we enjoyed the peace and quiet and then Em, E and R arrived with Lucy, R and R in time for lunch, chatting and playing. Monster had met E and R previously at Kessingland Muddlepuddle camp in the summer but had claimed not to remember them. He certainly hit it off with R though and they all played inside and out very happily together. Em and Lucy headed off about half an hour before our next lots of guests arrived. First was Chris, BB and SB from Petits Haricots  followed shortly afterwards by Katy and Becca. The children very quickly settled themselves and were playing happily inside and outside, had their pizza for tea and with fairly minimal shuffling were all in bed by a pretty respectable time. Leaving A, Chris, Katy and I to eat our pizza not too long afterwards - although that is by A and my standards of late eating rather than the normal feeding time for most I suspect!

Saturday - The Big Day. Lucy came and helped me set the hall up with food, decorations and many blown up balloons (well done Luce! ) while A did sterling work entertaining the growing crowd of guests back at our house. Eventually we travelled in convoy with all of the already assembled guests to the hall at about 1.30pm to be joined over the next hour or so by loads more guests. I never did do a full head count but I know including babies we were at least 29 children so I imagine we went over 50 in all easily. With a couple of exceptions of little girls who were desperate for more party games most of the children were far too busy playing their own games to be wanting to be bothered with musical chairs, so we left interfering with them to a Pin the bow tie on Wallace, a very lengthy game of Musical Statues and a team game called The Wrong Trousers. We did the Happy Birthday blowing out the candles and I think I’m safe in saying a Grand Day Out was had by all.

Once everyone had pitched in with the tidying up some 30 of the guests came back to our house for the evening -  19 were sleeping here altogether! A managed to keep a constant stream of toasted sandwiches and party food leftovers coming out of the kitchen, various menfolk were sent out for alcohol, the children played in the garden until it got dark and then came inside where a lot of them were subjected to very sparkly, glittery, highly scented makeovers in Teeny’s bedroom.

A lovely day - thanks to all who were part of it.

Sunday - a relaxing morning for those who had stayed overnight with most guests drifting off during the morning leaving just Kirsty and James who were staying another night. We resisted the urge to just sit around the house and drove to the nearby beach where the children stripped down to pants and played in the sea and on the rocks, having a whale of a time. We all had ice creams and came home via the local airport. An anticipated early night for the children didn’t quite happen but the adults didn’t last very late - it had been quite a week!