Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was T's 6th Birthday Party. It was a super time, aided particularly by the weather, meaning most of it could be spent outside.

I had originally said only 10 girls could come, then it turned out that there was only 12 girls in the class, so I caved. Then realised that some of these had siblings. In the end we managed to distribute about 14 party buckets, although it seemed much more.

We started at 2pm, and the mums (unusually for this part of America, at least), dutifully dropped the kids in our care, then went and hid in the family-room with several bottles of wine. It was nice that I actually managed to persuade almost all of the parents to stay as usually there is the tendency for them to disappear (after jettisoning most of their off-spring). Bridgjo managed to rustle up an excellent obstacle course, with a packing-case tunnel, several bridges (one of which was over a paddling-pool full of piranha (or rubber ducks)), cones, jumps etc. At the end was some serious balloon-popping, which went down very well.

After that I took them inside for the first Pass-The-Parcel. I slung the parcel in the middle of this circle of girls half-expecting them to react like English kids (ie manic ripping of wrapping, over within about 15 seconds). Noooo, first of all, it had to be explained, that they can only unwrap one-layer when the music stops ("but what's a layer?"), with there a prize in the middle ("but who gets it?"). Luckily, I had factored in two of these, as it was the first time any of them had played it. By the time the second one came round at the end of the day, they were practically English). We then went outside and had some good-old Brownie-style running around games, like What Time is it, Mr Wolf? (Quelle heure est-il, M. le Loup, for the French girls), Mother, May I? (which they were all rubbish at), and The Captain is Coming!

Getting slightly hoarse by then, we entered the bear-pit which was the Party Room. I had managed (at quite short notice) to get two tables and 12 chairs from the local party shop. We ate that perennial birthday favourite (in my house) - mice sitting on a field of green jelly, pizza dough snakes, fruit salad (which some of them regarded with distrust), and a rather brilliant birthday cake from Lunds and Byerleys, figuring out that by the time I had bought all the cake tins I needed, I may as well buy the thing.

After that (this was all carefully orchestrated, you understand), we had Pin the Tail on The Dragon (which involved some serious cheating), a reprise of the Pass-The-Parcel, and (at the prompting of one of the guests - which was lucky as we'd forgotten), the Pinata. The Pinata was a girl version, where you didn't have to hit it madly with a large baseball bat, but each pulled a pink string instead. Didn't stop them belting each other in the queue for it, mind.

All that remained after this was the dispersal of the party buckets, indicating that I wanted everyone to go home. Actually I have no idea if all the parents turned up and took home the correct kids, but I assume so.

Only the French people remained, as it turned out to be such a nice afternoon. They went off and did some shopping, and we had a rather good impromptu barbecue going on until quite late.

And T's favourite part? Making a fort out of card-board boxes late in the evening.

All worth-while then.