Birthday Party

The Birthday Party has been a project, nay a raison d'etre for Nicole these past few days.

It has trumped her pseudo-asthmatic breathing difficulties and her inability to speak into a distant second place as she has organised, baked, decorated, iced and generally enjoyed herself with her cakes, refreshments, muffins and all that in preparation for the "low key" turned potentially riotous party we have had the undiluted pleasure of hosting.

The writing was on the wall when it transpired that Eloise shared a birthday with Olivia and the party became a joint affair, with decision-making turning into a negotiation and suddenly all the girls in Eloise's class got a posh butterfly-encrusted home-made invitation.

The cake was a confection of some ambition, composed as it was of several cakes artfully arranged into a butterfly.

The party itself went without incident really, discounting minot misbehaviours. The adults, and there were many of them, occupied themselves while the children occupied themselves on the playground..

Eloise was discovered opening her presents in a frenzy and had to be trained in the "open the card, find the person, open the present, say thankyou" process, so some presents remain unattributed.

The one adult-mediated group activity was pass the parcel. Huw, Olivia's dad, had been entrusted with this as a task. There were near panic when the iPod speakers ran out of batteries, but in the end all was well.

It lasted five hours. It was fun. We were exhausted by the end. No major arguments. Lots of polite kids. My god these Aussie kids are polite. It's worrying, and probably socio-economically significant.