Guest blog by Elsie Button
As I mentioned in my previous post, it was my youngest daughter Dolly’s third birthday at the end of April.
This year she specified that she would like a party, so I stuck to the usual rule I use for Betty, and told Dolly that she could invite three friends (to match her age).
The sun was nowhere to be seen, in fact we were knee-deep in floods by the time the day came around, so we abandoned any grand plans for a laid back bbq down by the river and had the party in our house.
Three guests may not seem like much work, but even that number requires a fair amount of planning and effort.
The night before I blew up 50 balloons, hung bunting, made the Peppa Pig cake, prepared the stripy jelly, made the fruit kebabs, and the fairy cakes. I even prepared party bags, which is a first for me. I ended up buckling under the constant nagging from older sister Betty. I tried in vain, to cling onto the ‘what’s wrong with just a balloon and piece of cake’ line, but Betty was having none of it.
Stripy Jelly
Peppa Pig herself wasn’t available. I tried to persuade my husband Tom to do the honours, but to no avail. But Dolly was quite happy stroking her cake instead, while I took deep breaths and almost cried when my creation became smudged, and indented with little fingerprints.
Peppa Pig Birthday Cake
During the party, I watched on in horror as the hippo bubble machine happily spat out millions of bubbles, which inevitably landed on my recently cleaned carpet and left huge soggy patches everywhere. If it hadn’t been my darling daughter’s birthday I would have most certainly marched her outside with the flipping thing.
We had a few games of pass the parcel, and I caused an argument because I accidentally stopped the music on the same person twice, meaning they won two prizes. We also played several games of musical statues and bumps and cushions. Three year olds get pretty distracted though, and without meaning to sound disloyal, they are not very good at it, so it takes a bit of clever manipulation to ensure that all children get to think that they have won.
I have a lucky dip bag full of little gifts of 50p and under, swimming around in foam chips. I get the bag out for all of my children’s parties. Some of the gifts have been in there for such a long time they are a surprise to me as well as the recipient.
So with all kids suitably happy with their little prizes – bubbles, whoopee cushions and out-sized Peppa Pig pencils – we sat down to eat the party food. From bitter experience, I don’t bother with sandwiches any more. Instead I let them all go crazy with the cheesy puffs and twiglets before moving on to the cakes.
Dolly had a lovely time, although was pretty shattered by the end of it, and minutes after the last guest left she requested that she be put to bed, with presents still unopened!