Four

Small boy will be four next week. Party this weekend. Harumph.

Now we’re at the point with small boy that parties aren’t so bad. Soft play with ball pits and rampant older kids and crappy food sure. But he’s old enough to go play by himself now. Which means, coffee with other mums! Almost unheard of until now. Even still he’s generally clingy for the first 15mins but then, wow! Actual human contact with real people I might possibly have stuff in common with. No work etiquette, no playground manners. Ok so there’s a fairly limited script of conversational topics but still, better than crawling round the softplay with him. Miles better. If my actual friend happens to be there then wow, pretty amazing.

But that’s other people’s parties. Our own party, well boo. Organizing and planning and cake and party bags. Bags are done (mostly, I think and hopefully the right number) but Saturday morning will be making sandwiches and chopping fruit and veg and sticking toppers on (bought) fairy cakes. And all so the he can get sweaty and disgusting and probably someone will bump heads. Plus large boy will be cross cos it’s not his party. I won’t get to talk to any of my friends and I doubt there’ll be coffee insight.

The saving grace is my amazing friend whose son shares his birthday with ours and is also one of his best buddies. We’re joint partying again, probably for the last time as next year they’ll have a totally different set of friends as they go off to different schools. Sharing the load with her has been brilliant. She’s even more organized than me, fab ideas and the boys will love it.

Next year? I’ll be doing the most complete soft play package I can find… roll on the days where they can be dropped off and picked up 2 hrs later, sugar fueled and almost ready to crash so they sleep for 12 hours.

Ungrateful? Naaa, just ready to take the path of least resistance.