Kids parties are modern warfare

I really think that this is true. It's like a competition between mums to outdo each other. Organising one is stressful. Where to have it, who to invite, what food to provide. Honestly, it's the stuff of nightmares. At the end of the day, it's the childs happiness that is the most important thing, but it's still seen as a reflection of parenting.

Emilia has had 2 birthday parties this weekend. One was in a place called Funsters, an indoor play area. It was for a little girl called Taya in her class. Taya has just turned 5. Taya already has highlights in her hair. Do you see where I'm going with this? A party in Funsters costs £10 per child (this does include food, you know, chips and something). We know this as Taya's mum told every single mum. There were 14 children including Taya there. You do the maths.

The second one was in the local leisure centre, where you can hire a bouncy castle for 55 minutes with supervision. This costs £85. You do need to provide your own food. It all adds up. However, in 55 minutes, it's hard to provide food for children who only have such a short time to bounce, and do any party games and blow out candles. This party was for Danny, who is commonly known as Emilia's boyfriend. Danny is rather besotted with Emilia and follows her around at school. I'd like to tell her that he'll change as he gets older, but I don't want to lie to her. Life is cruel. Anyway, it was a good party. Tanya (Danny's mum) made a cake, an Angry Birds cake (AMAZING!), had some drinks and packets of Quavers.

So at the end of the day, whose party was better? Well, my answer is, does it really matter? All of the kids that went to the parties had fun. The birthday children felt special for the day, as they should do. And the parents were left stressed out and wondering why they went to such fuss when it was all over so quickly and never to be mentioned again. I can tell you that they're not discussed in the playground as much as you hope they would be. I speak from experience.

Seriously though, I'll make Emilia's party next year even better. It's war.

The Angry Birds cake!