Me Time

Birthday Blues

I've stated before how fond I am of children's birthday parties. (If you didn't click on the link, I was being sarcastic.) I'm getting better at handling them as I get older, though. Experience has taught me a thing or two:

1. Over-catering is just silly: They're generally happy with lots of chips and a small selection of sweets.
2. Cupcakes won't be eaten: Generally, the kids just lick the icing off the top and leave the rest.
3. "Drop and go" is a key phrase for invitations: Leave it out at your peril. Mothers will stay, sit on your couch, and stare blankly at you throughout the entire proceedings, without so much as a "may I help you mop up the litre of juice that my dear one has just spilled on the floor?"
4. Try to ensure that the party venue isn't your lounge: It won't recover and neither will you.
5. No one replies to invitations: Ever.

Another 2 birthdays in our household are rapidly approaching (James turning 9 and Hannah turning 6) and I can feel that familiar sense of dread creeping in. I think James's party is sorted: he'd like to go and see a movie with a few of his friends. The only glitch would be if there's nothing appropriate on circuit that week....

So to ease my pain just a little bit, how about giving me suggestions for a fun (CHEAP!) birthday party for Hannah, who turns 6 on the 8th of October, and is into fairies, pink, ballet and all things pretty. And remember: I'm hopelessly uncreative, so don't expect me to sew, bake or fashion anything from scratch...

How to make me feel like a bad mommy

Yesterday, I had to run a workshop from 9.30am. I had forgotten to get the eats for tea, so I had to stop off at the shop before work to get them. In order to save time, I asked Hannah whether she could go into class with James. Usually, I walk all the way into the class with her, and usually, she's very clingy and doesn't want to let me go. Yesterday, though, she was so happy to go on her own: grabbed her bag and a bag of paper for recycling, held James's hand and proudly waved goodbye to me.

I watched them skip into school together, waved once more and then got into the car with Jonah to drop him off at his school. On the way, I was feeling quite smug: my two older children were old and responsible enough to see each other into the school grounds. I even hummed to a song on the radio.

Until my cell phone rang.

"Hello, Mrs Dunlop?"

"Yes?"

"It's XX here from XX Primary."

Oh no, not again.

"Hannah's had a bit of an accident."

Pause while I almost crash the car.

"She said her bag was too heavy and she fell over. She's bruised her forehead and she says her knee is a little bit sore. We're giving her some apple juice and she seems to be calming down."

"Ok, so she's in the office now?"

"Yes, we just thought we'd let you know. Bye now."

And she hung up before I could ask to speak to her.

Sigh. I'm not cut out for this working mom stuff. Poor kid: the first time she goes into school on her own and she gets an egg on the head to celebrate.

**
Woot: I've had an entry for my contest! I'm going to be away from tomorrow until Saturday afternoon, so feel free to enter in my absence. I've also set a post to go up on Thursday. We'll see if it works.

That Mom

I was that mom yesterday.

The one who arrives at the supermarket, places her 2 year old son in the trolley and starts shopping.

The one who sets about choosing a birthday present for the party her 8 year old is attending even as she shops.

The one whose son starts asking for toys because, well, everything looks so cool and shiny, doesn’t it?

The one who can’t satisfy her son with anything and so moves on, hoping to distract him.

The one whose son starts whining, softly, but insistently.

The one whose son’s whines turn to crying, but she can’t do anything to stop it.

The one who is stopped by a sweet old woman, who chats to her son for a few moments and manages to keep him calm.

The one whose son starts to cry the moment they move on.

The one whose son starts screaming a few minutes later.

The one who picks her son up when they are finished shopping and carries him out, screaming and kicking.

The one everyone is watching as she leaves the shop with her son over her shoulder, kicking and screaming.

The one who has to put her son down because he’s kicking her so much, she almost drops him.

The one who walks away from her son, because she thinks that that will finally do the trick to get him to comply.

The one who stares her 2 year old down from across the store – a stand-off – and loses.

The one who places her child in the car seat by holding his legs down with her elbow because he’s screaming and struggling so much.

The one who, as she’s driving away, lets out a scream of frustration.

***

Needless to say, Jonah isn’t adjusting very well to crèche. He had to start this week and hates it. Cries when we get changed in the morning, cries when we get in the car after dropping James and Hannah off at school, and cries when I leave him for work. I know he’ll get used to it, but I’m hating this phase.

***

My dad is progressing so well. He’s been asking for food, snacks and reading material and has his old sense of humour back. According to the doctors, he’ll be home next Friday.

A miracle.

Hell in a party

I’m not a great nature lover. I don’t long for big, open spaces, lots of greenery and lengthy walks on mountaintops. When my sister talks about her garden and the little things she’s growing, my eyes glaze over and I forget to listen. Not that I hate the environment. I’m just perfectly comfortable in a mall, thanks, and I like my things around me. I suppose I’m a fairly urban girl.

But this weekend? I saw the extreme side of materialism and it felt as though I’d died and gone to hell.

Hannah was invited to a birthday party at a casino. Yes, Hannah’s 5 and her friend was turning 6. And yet there it was on the invitation: “Please come to my party…at the casino.”

Okaaaay.

The party was in a ‘children’s’ area at the casino. To get there, you have to park at the other end of the suburb, walk for about a day to get from the one side of the over-full parking lot to the other, find the right building, pass your belongings through a security checkpoint and submit to a search by security guards, and then walk past the inside of the casino itself, replete with glazed, drooling gamblers slumped in front of slot machines.

The ‘children’s’ area was a delightful place full of children’s gambling items. Terribly charming. Lights, noise, screaming babies (what? What the hell are people doing bringing babies here, anyway??) and pumping music.

Thankfully, the actual venue that Hannah’s birthday party was another room within the charming children’s gambling area. A kind of indoor amusement park, it had a merry-go-round, bumper cars, a tiny rollercoaster, an octopus, a swing, and because we needed a reminder that we were in a casino, there was also a requisite betting area where you could race mechanical horses.

And noise. And lots of lights. And pumping music. And people wheeling around toddlers and babies. Again: what?

The main premise of the party was to allow 2 go's on each ride. The children had an absolute ball. They raced from one ride to the other without even pausing to check whether their parents were keeping up. Hannah bravely attempted every ride and then came back for more. She laughed and screamed and giggled. She loved it.

For me, it was a taste of the seventh level of hell. I didn’t realize I had such a low tolerance for ambient noise. There was just too MUCH of everything. The noise, the screaming, the music, the stupid people. I hated it. My nerves were jangled, I was panicked that Hannah or Jonah or James were going to get lost and all I wanted afterwards was to escape to a mountaintop where all I could hear was the sound of the wind in the trees.

So am I actually a nature-lover? Not so much. Just sane.

Overheard

Hannah (on hearing the word "paradise" in a song on the radio): What's Paradise?

James: It's when you have a lot of money and you get to go to a place that has a swimming pool and lots of nice stuff.

mmm. Perhaps my message about materialism hasn't quite got through yet...

Creative Mommy

As I've stated ad nauseum on this blog, I suck at crafty stuff. But this idea on Fifi's blog inspired me. It's the winter holidays here at the moment and it feels like it's been raining forever. The children are ready to climb the walls from cabin fever. To be honest, my usual reaction to that would be to throw money at the problem and buy a few crafty toys. But after seeing what Fi did, I threw caution to the wind and decided to actually create something for them to do.

We went to Builder's Warehouse yesterday and bought an off-cut of wood for R13. Then we bought a packet of nails for R12 and a box of elastics for R7.

Scott banged the nails into the wood yesterday afternoon. The kids have not.stopped.playing with it. They can't get enough of this thing.

Excellent idea!

This is Fifi's photo, because my stupid camera has given up the ghost. But trust me when I say that ours is also a thing of beauty. :)