As I said in the last post, its my darling daughter's birthday on Friday and her party Saturday. It seems we should be OK with attendees now as we have around 25 kids coming to dance, stuff their faces with food and generally have a good time (well, that's the idea anyway).
With that in mind, I'm baking up a storm in the kitchen, trying to make sure everything is completely allergy OK for Littlest (after all, you don't want to have to call 999 in the middle of a kids party).
I was doing just that for the last hour, aided and abetted by my MP3 player.
At which point, Mini, never shy of telling us what she thinks, caught me in the kitchen dancing to Taylor Swift. Which is only on my MP3 player for walks home with her in the first place. In my defence its a nice sunny day, all is good so I do tend to sing along to anything that happens to pop up on it when my hands are covered in biscuit batter and I can't skip the song.
If looks could kill, readers, I would be pushing up daisies and my biscuits would be handed round as a teary eyed last hurrah at my wake.
Back in the day (when she was under 6), she would love coming in the kitchen and dancing and singing with me. Not anymore.
According to her strict law, if I dare dance, sing, or horror of horrors (as I did suggest it) twerk, she will never speak to me again, and her name, even worse, will be "mud" at school (I kid you not, her words, not mine).
She flounced out the kitchen and grabbed her iPod to no doubt diva strop up in her room.
Surely, fellow parents, the whole "my parents are so embarrassing" thing is not really meant to rear its ugly "yes you can pay for and organise my party at great cost but please fade into the background pronto" head until she turns 13? Not 8!
Nope, not in our house.
It was the same at the disco, which I stayed at as there were quite a few lovely Mums from school helping out and actually, for a school disco the DJ played some top tunes at the Junior part.
I got death stares, all night. Despite one of the year 6 girls telling her "your Mum can really dance, how cool", I think Mini would have much preferred me to bugger off home and stay there in my slippers.
I'm only 33. I don't even feel like I'm in my 30s (I actually have good excuse for that as I'm constantly asked if I am travelling with a student bus pass). So frankly, I don't consider myself in the OAP, embarrassing parent bracket quite yet.
I think I shall just hide at the party and dance in the corner. Behind a curtain. Quietly.
How about you guys? Do you get told you're embarrassing? How old is your child?
:) Enjoy the sunshine :)
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Tuesday, 7 April 2015
Monday, 19 January 2015
Is It Just Me: Who Thinks Yes, You Should be Invoiced If You Miss a Party
....With no good reason.
I couldn't help but be quite surprised at the backlash the family involved in this story have received. If you've not seen it yet, what happened was that a child was invited to a party at a ski run. He then didn't go- not down to illness, but because he decided to go to his Gran's instead.
Which is fine.
Except instead of being entirely normal about it, and phoning the party's hosts, they didn't bother. In fact, they made no attempt to contact them. Thus, they received an invoice for the amount their child;s ticket cost.
Quite right to!
Anyone who has organised a kids party will know how stressful it is. It takes months to organise even if you just do a small shindig in the garden. There's food to consider (and allergies/dietary requirements), party bags, bouncy castles the whole nine yards.
The invites are the biggest stress and parent's of the invitees don't help. First off, you have to hand them out via teachers so as those not invited don't get upset (and if you don't adopt this method, you are, frankly, mean). Then, you have to wait for the yays and nays. If you get 3 invites back you are lucky. So, you then try and track down Mums and Dads to check whether their child can come.
On the day, the stress doesn't end until the last party bag is handed out and the mess is tidied. As usual, there are always kids who turn up who said no or never answered (in other words, their parent's realise you can be a free babysitter for 2 hours of a Saturday evening and dump their kids last minute), and one's who said yes and then never show up, never phone, nothing.
Its rude!
In the case of Mini's party, our Gerbils died of Face Paint poisoning after being fed a set.
So, yes, when someone doesn't show, doesn't call, it is annoying. Of course, if you have organised an outside party, as with this family, you still have to cough up the cash should people not show up. Hence the invites in the first place.
I don't buy the stories from the supposedly shocked parent's that they couldn't tell the hosts. For starters, they say that the Dad forgot he was taking their daughter to Grans for the day, but yet the boy's mother surely could have taken him? Then you have the "didn't know the phone number- well, that's what Facebook is for isn't it?
They then said that the Mother tried to find the hosts parent in the playground but missed her. Surely then, a note could've and should've been past to the teacher to go in the book bag? Clearly they knew in advance the boy wasn't going.
It sounds to me that they just didn't bother.
That they then got a sealed envelope in the book bag- which the boy would not have been party to hence why he'd be upset- well, tough!
Why should the family pay for their bad manners?
Yes, its a bit far to suggest going to a small claims court, but it's also a bit far going to the press to complain!
Apparently, lazy Mum has suddenly remembered that Facebook exists and messaged the, well within her rights, Mum. Perhaps she should've done that before messing the party hosts around!
If you book to take part, you have to pay. Simple.
Next time, show some manners and show up!
What's your take? Have you had costly no shows or do you think its part of parenting paying out? Let me know in the comments :)
I couldn't help but be quite surprised at the backlash the family involved in this story have received. If you've not seen it yet, what happened was that a child was invited to a party at a ski run. He then didn't go- not down to illness, but because he decided to go to his Gran's instead.
Which is fine.
Except instead of being entirely normal about it, and phoning the party's hosts, they didn't bother. In fact, they made no attempt to contact them. Thus, they received an invoice for the amount their child;s ticket cost.
Quite right to!
Anyone who has organised a kids party will know how stressful it is. It takes months to organise even if you just do a small shindig in the garden. There's food to consider (and allergies/dietary requirements), party bags, bouncy castles the whole nine yards.
The invites are the biggest stress and parent's of the invitees don't help. First off, you have to hand them out via teachers so as those not invited don't get upset (and if you don't adopt this method, you are, frankly, mean). Then, you have to wait for the yays and nays. If you get 3 invites back you are lucky. So, you then try and track down Mums and Dads to check whether their child can come.
On the day, the stress doesn't end until the last party bag is handed out and the mess is tidied. As usual, there are always kids who turn up who said no or never answered (in other words, their parent's realise you can be a free babysitter for 2 hours of a Saturday evening and dump their kids last minute), and one's who said yes and then never show up, never phone, nothing.
Its rude!
In the case of Mini's party, our Gerbils died of Face Paint poisoning after being fed a set.
So, yes, when someone doesn't show, doesn't call, it is annoying. Of course, if you have organised an outside party, as with this family, you still have to cough up the cash should people not show up. Hence the invites in the first place.
I don't buy the stories from the supposedly shocked parent's that they couldn't tell the hosts. For starters, they say that the Dad forgot he was taking their daughter to Grans for the day, but yet the boy's mother surely could have taken him? Then you have the "didn't know the phone number- well, that's what Facebook is for isn't it?
They then said that the Mother tried to find the hosts parent in the playground but missed her. Surely then, a note could've and should've been past to the teacher to go in the book bag? Clearly they knew in advance the boy wasn't going.
It sounds to me that they just didn't bother.
That they then got a sealed envelope in the book bag- which the boy would not have been party to hence why he'd be upset- well, tough!
Why should the family pay for their bad manners?
Yes, its a bit far to suggest going to a small claims court, but it's also a bit far going to the press to complain!
Apparently, lazy Mum has suddenly remembered that Facebook exists and messaged the, well within her rights, Mum. Perhaps she should've done that before messing the party hosts around!
If you book to take part, you have to pay. Simple.
Next time, show some manners and show up!
What's your take? Have you had costly no shows or do you think its part of parenting paying out? Let me know in the comments :)
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Birthday Party Countdown- 1 Month to Go!
It is Mini's 5th Birthday next month, and now she's at school, she's excited about it and has been for months.
Literally, since just after we threw the last piece of Christmas wrapping paper out for the recycling, she has been asking about her birthday. What are we going to do for it? Can she have a party? Can she have a big cake? You get the idea.
Over the weekend, we finally sat down to officially plan the party itself. We don't mind her having a small party, after all it's a bunch of easy to please 4 and 5 year olds, so a bit of cake and a couple of rounds of pin the tail on the donkey like days gone by parties from my youth will be OK, right?
Over the weekend, we finally sat down to officially plan the party itself. We don't mind her having a small party, after all it's a bunch of easy to please 4 and 5 year olds, so a bit of cake and a couple of rounds of pin the tail on the donkey like days gone by parties from my youth will be OK, right?
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