My Sweet 5th Party - bling bling

Our daughter started school last year, 2008, which was a turning point in our lives as parents.  We were proud of passing this milestone, but also sad because it meant our little baby girl was growing up a lot faster than we wanted.  So, when our daughter turned 5, we wanted it to be a special day for her.  Not an MTV style "My Sweet 5th" birthday, but a party that she wanted, including theme, guests, music, food, etc.

We had to eliminate certain demands in the early planning stages, such as circus in the back garden, horses for everybody to ride on or a professional DJ, but most of her other wishes were accepted.

The theme of the party was princesses and princes (or knights). So, now we just had to agree on the guest list.  There were no need to argue with her about the guest list as she simply had to invite her entire class which is approx. 30 kids.  However, she also wanted to invite friends from her gym, drama and ballet classes, so now the guest list was getting close to 35 kids - ALL below the age of 6.

As they say in "Indiana Jones - Last Crusade", we chose unwisely.  Which sane person would invite 35 kids to their house for a 3 hour long party, which obviously included food and party games?  Well, we did!! 

The house was decorated with the theme of the party. We cooked the food and baked the cakes, cookies and muffins the day before. So, we were prepared - or were we?  All furniture had been moved to the sides, leaving loads of free floor space, to run and dance on.

One thing was certain and I knew this and I smile devilishly inside.  All the other parents in her class were now forced to invite all kids to their parties too, otherwise they would have a riot on their hands.

The big day came, a Friday afternoon after school, and our daughter was ecstatic - her first party.  Now, I've seen her on drugs and I know what she would look like intoxicated.  Lucky for us that this was only her 5th birthday and not 15th, so we didn't have to worry about alcohol.  Well, I needed some alcohol afterwards.

We should have known the mistake we were making, when parents dropping of their kids were running away from our house laughing.  Some even wished us good luck and asked if we had a good house insurance.  I've never witnessed parents being so punctual when it came to dropping off their kids at our house.

For the next 3 hours, our house was invided by 30-35 kids between 4-6 years old.  Thankfully we had hired our daughter's nieces, aunty and grandma to assist us. I had taken the day off work too.  It became a mad house within 30 seconds. The loud pitch screams made our dogs run away in pain.  Even I needed to wear protective headphones to protect my ears.

It has to be said, I've been to my fair share of loud heavy metal concerts in my youth (I'm still young), but nothing compared to this.  Man-O-War (the band) use to hold the record for highest Db at a live concert, but 30+ kids broke that record in no time.

Kids at that age, at a party, do not talk, they scream frantically and excitingly to each other, despite standing only a few inches from each other.  It didn't help when my dear wife pulled out her face painting kit.  Within minutes, all kids, except the loner on the sofa, were queueing up to get their face painted.

At any party, even when I was a kid, you always had one kid who didn't want to participate, and it was no different at my daughter's party.  As soon as this particular boy arrived, he jumped into the sofa.  He wasn't dressed up like all his class mates and he was in no mood to play.  Every 20 minutes he would ask me if he could play on the Wii. He got upset every time I told him no.  In the end, I was ready to demolish the Wii to remove that distraction, but decided that it was more fun to tease him by moving the Wii (+ controllers) up beyond reach.

The food table was attacked like hurricane Katrina, leaving only debrise of plastic cups, the food they didn't like and puddles of juice on the floor.

My wife had spent all evening, the previous night, preparing the special birthday cake, which was shaped as a princess. It was gorgeous (actual photo inserted).  When all the girls saw the cake they screamed hysterically and started to push each other to get a better look at it.  Honestly, if Hannah Montana had entered the room they wouldn't have cared less.  They sang their hearts out and clapped.  It was wonderful! Our daughter was sitting in the middle of the mob, smiling so much that her smile had to be surgically removed.  It was easy to see that she was having a blast.

Shortly after the birthday singing, it was time for the dance competition and bubble disco.  Imagine 30+ standing in your living room staring at you ready to dance.  My wife started the music and ALL kids started to scream and jump around.  Ornaments, flowers, DVDs and books were falling off the shelves.  Kids were pushing each other and laughing.  It was wilder than attending the Ice T concert when he sang "Cop Killer".

Finally, my wife had decided to introduce a piñata to the kids.  Basically, the kids were to smash a papier mache  animal with a wooden stick, until it cracked open, so all the sweets could fall out.  I was nominated by my wife to hold the stuffed paper animal, which meant I had to stand on a chair within swinging reach.  The main area of concern was, to be honest, my genitals.  Every time a kid would swing the wooden stick, sweat would break on my face and I would have visions of lying on the floor in severe pain.   Thankfully it didn't happen, but I was almost knocked over when little Hugo burst open the paper animal and all the sweets hit the ground.  A surge of kids charged towards the sweets, almost tipping the chair I was standing on.  Frantically I grabbed the door frame and swung to safety in my best Indiana Jones style.

3 hours past extremely quickly. However, I was surprised how late some parents came to collect their kids.  Most parents were still laughing at us, for having the party. One kid wasn't collected until 20.00 (pm), 3 hours after the party ended.

I was so grateful that the party had been on a Friday, as it gave us the rest of the weekend to recover and clean the house.  The most important bit was that all the kids, except little John, had a great time.  To this day we are continuously asked when we're having our next party...The best thing was that our daughter enjoyed every minute of it. She wanted the party to continue into the night.  This makes me a bit worried since she's clearly a little party animal.