Birthday party

On Saturday we held a 2nd birthday party for our toddler, C, at home. A great time was had by all, most especially the birthday girl, who is still talking about "my birfday party, mine 'appy birfday!"

Unlike a lot of our parties, this one wasn't particularly themed, although her big sisters, indulging her current love of the Wiggles, made Wiggly signs and decorations to put up around the house.

We also cleaned and decluttered the place to within an inch of its life (parties are very good for us in that regard - they force the "big" clean, the one you've been putting off, and sometimes that's really helpful! The table looked pretty nice as it was set up, if I do say so.

One big difference that I noticed in preparing for this party is how much more pleasurable the prep time was, and how very unstressed we were, in the days before and the morning of the day itself. This is the very first time I've prepared for a kid's party while not also juggling paid work and carrying a horrendous sleep debt. C now sleeps a lot better - mostly down from 8:30pm to 6am, and only waking at night once or twice a week - and that, combined with my less pressured time now I do not have to shoehorn work hours in every week, made the whole experience really enjoyable for me.


Expecting about 15 children and 20 adults for afternoon tea, I made the following party food:

- fairy bread, which is always and ever a hit
- fruit plates
- bacon & egg pies, which always go very quickly with older kids and adults alike
- a Spanish frittata (potato & red onion)
- mini cupcakes iced in fairy colours
- Vietnamese-style rice paper rolls, some with prawns, some with marinaded chicken
- a chocolate hazelnut cake (provided by my Mum)
- bowls of chips
- "little boys" (mini frankfurt sausages)
- multicoloured jellies

There was also, naturally, the birthday cake - following in a family tradition of 2nd birthday cakes, C's was an ice cream cake from Dairy Bell, in the shape of Thomas the Tank Engine.

The food was pretty close to all consumed - we had half a frittata left, which made a nice dinner on Sunday combined with a salad, and a few slices of the chocolate hazelnut cake, but that was about it. Everyone seemed to have enough - I hope they did! I only served iced water to drink and later, cups of tea and coffee - I think it's just easier (not to mention cheaper) to avoid sweetened drinks at parties altogether.

We did have fun! We had a pass the parcel, where each layer was filled with a little object from the $1 basket at the local Big W - things like skipping ropes, yoyos, water guns, bubble wands, hopping frogs, mini puzzles, and so on. The beauty of that was that as soon as the pass the parcel was done, all the kids poured outside to play with their new acquisitions, which amused them for half an hour before the second party game - a classic, old-fashioned, hilarious egg & spoon race. The kids bounced on the trampoline and dug in the sandpit and generally had a good time. The adults sat and ate and chatted and soaked up the sun.

The birthday girl herself was entranced, not least by her superlative haul of gifts - which was heavy on playdoh related items, kitchen / cooking stuff, and puzzles. But she also loved having all her favourite grown-ups around her (grandparents, godmother, neighbours, friends), and having loads of kids to play with and cosset her, and playing games and eating copious amounts of fairy bread, fruit, and cake.

It was, in the words of my brother, an old-skool kid's party - nothing fancy, nothing heavy, just fun food and a few games and cake and laughter. It was a wonderful day.

Reading Notes - The Secret Garden

When I think about the truly magical books of my childhood, many titles come to mind. Some of them, such as My Side of the Mountain and the Narnia books, I've written about here - books that I've loved, and have loved again sharing with my girls. There are many more that I haven't yet got around to reading to the kids, though, for one reason or another. So it was a very happy surprise when my eldest, who's 7 1/2, came home from school with a library book as her reader and announced, "Look, Mum. I borrowed this book called The Secret Garden. Mrs O says she thinks I'll like it. Do you?"

"Oh yes!" I enthused, startling her a bit with my response, I think. "You'll love it!"

My conviction that she, like millions of children before her in the hundred years since this book's 1911 publication, will love The Secret Garden is already being amply justified. The night before last, she went to bed with it at 8:00, aiming to read 10 pages before lights-out at 8:15. At 9:30, as I was finishing the wipe-down of the kitchen before bed, she came padding out to get her water bottle from the fridge, her eyes tired.

"Did you wake up, love?" I said, surprised. It's rare for her to wake that early in the night.

"No..." she equivocated, then said in a small voice, "I've been reading. With my torch. Under the blankets."

My effort to put on a stern parental face utterly failed in my wash of memories of doing that exact thing at her age. "Enjoying the book, honey?" I said.

"It's really, really good, Mum," she said earnestly. "I'm up to page 70 and I think Mary is going to find the key to the garden soon! Oh, I'm loving it! It feels like a magical world, except not magic exactly, more..."

"Secret," I finished for her, nodding. She's put her finger on one of the core appeals of this wonderful story - the feeling of hidden delights, private spaces, secret stories, that is so vividly realised in the evocation of the living, breathing space of a garden. One of my favourite aspects of the book was always the detail and love with which Burnett describes the growing world - you can almost smell the good earth in her words, see the plants unfurling, hear the robin singing his little song.

Another thing that A, my 7 year old, is very taken with is the character of Mary. She likes Mary precisely because Mary is cross-grained and disagreeable; so far from a picture-perfect heroine, she's a spoiled, cossetted terror at the start of the book. Mary's gradual redemption to her true self (which is still strong-willed, still obstinate, still feisty, but also brave, steadfast, loyal, honest and intelligent) is a story arc that never grows old for me. A is already seeing a change in Mary, and she's astute enough to know that it will probably gain momentum as the book moves forward.

It's a great thrill for me that A has discovered this classic by herself, browsing in the library, and was instantly drawn to it. It, and other books of its vintage, are my salvation to the problem of having a child that reads 3 years or more above her age-group, but for whom many contemporary authors do not produce subject-suitable material. She needs books that demand a high level of literacy but retain a child-centric view of the world, and Burnett, like another of my favourites, Edith Nesbitt, fits the bill admirably there.

As for what she's going to read next? "I saw another book in the library that looked really good," she mused. "It was called Charlotte's Web..."

Two

Happy 2nd birthday, my darling baby. I love you more than a mountain, more than a star, all the way to the moon ... and back again.

We Play - Mud Puddles in the Summertime

When you come home from swimming lessons on a warm Saturday,


and your Dad makes you chocolate milkshakes with extra ice-cream,


and you discover a lovely muddy puddle from the night before's heavy rains,


and Mum says to have fun in your bathers,


well, that's pretty much a perfect morning.


This post is part of the weekly We Play meme at the wonderful Childhood 101. Check out the main page over there for lots of fantastic play ideas.

Walking to school

Today is the end of the second week of the school term where I live. My secondborn started school this year, while my eldest is in her third year (Grade 2, here in Victoria). We've had a really positive start to the year, with only a few minor bumps, and part of what has helped it to be so successful, in my opinion, is our decision to walk to school three days a week.

If the kids ride their scooters and I push the toddler in her pusher, the walk to school takes us 17-20 minutes. (It's no more than 3 minutes in the car, but usually takes an additional 5 minutes to find a park and walk into the school from the car). Being out in the morning air seems to perk us all up and for me, certainly, helps work out any kinks from the night and wake me up. Coming back, the toddler likes to walk rather than be pushed, and we meander home slowly, often taking as long as 45 minutes, stopping to look at things and chat to other school parents as they wend their way home.

After school, both the big kids seem to really value the walking time, talking about their day in a relaxed way. We often stop off at the park on the way back and they work off some energy there, and on Fridays (a tradition carried forward from last year), we stop at the milk bar for an ice-cream to celebrate the end of the week.

It seems like a lot of time out of the day when you add it up - at least an hour in the morning, often an hour and a half in the afternoon - but it sets a tone for the whole day that is really upbeat. Our two car days, where I need to go directly on to activities with the toddler after school drop-off, are noticeably less serene in their beginnings.

I'm not sure if it's the exercise, the fresh air, the chance to talk, the independent motion, or the fact that we are together when we walk in a way that you're just not when you're hustling people in and out of cars. Or maybe it's just that walking to school gives me, in particular, the occasion and the cause to literally stop and smell the roses.

Whatever the reason, I'm really enjoying the school walk.