Party Time

We are hosting Little Prince's 8th birthday party today at an indoor play centre, the same one we visited at weekend with Lil Sis and her family. Little Prince is EXTREMELY excited!! I'm totally disorganised!!! We've got to pick him (and a friend) up from school, rush to the Supermarket and get a birthday cake and party bags, then rush over to the play centre for 4.30pm!! Its definitely going to be rush rush rush!!! Princess Lollipop is fast asleep on the sofa, as she was really tired and she'll get over tired and grumpy if she didn't get a nap before going to her brother's party, where she will also run round non stop!! There are about 12 children (including the littlies) coming so it should be loud and chaotic - just how a little boy's birthday party should be lol. I've got to go and pack a bag of party clothes for Little Prince and hope I get it right!! And fingers crossed Princess Lollipop wakes up in time to get changed too!!

Well Princess Lollipop woke up almost as soon as I'd written the sentence above lol. So I got her changed into her pretty dress that she got for Christmas, and she was extremely impressed that the dress had a matching hand bag :-) And that she could finally wear her "pawkul doos on" (sparkle shoes-on, all clothes/shes have "on" at the end for some reason!). Mr Messy arrived home in time to get Princess Lollipop's car seat fitted in his car and for us all to get round to school in time to collect Little Prince.

We also collected Little Prince's friend C, who we were taking to the party with us. Plus the ginormous present she had bought for Little Prince!! We arranged with C's Dad that we would drop her off at home when the party finished. On the way to the party we had to make a quick stop at the Supermarket, for a birthday cake and party bags and fillings!! I left the three kids and Mr Messy in the car and ran in as quick as I could! I met Y's Mum, who had been to college and was going to do some shopping before meeting us at the party (Y had travelled with hsi best friend's Mum). We arrived early, which gave me time to get the party bags filled!! Little Prince and his friend rushed to the toilets to get changed out of their school uniforms and then were on pins waiting for their friends to arrive. I managed to persuade them to go and play instead of just hanging around, and they did and had fun :-)

It wasn't too long before the other children started to arrive and they all seemed to be playing together nicely. However, one little boy T wasn't having a great time :-( His Mum said it was probably because he was under the weather and was hungry. After a few minutes T, threw a strop and ran off and hid in the play structure and ran away everytime his Mum tried to talk to him! Eventually she persuaded him to come back to where we were sitting and offered him a snack to eat, however T had got himself so worked up he refused and ran off again! Luckily the play centre has one secure entrance that children are only allowed out of with their parent, although to his credit T didn't even think of trying to leave. After making his point, T finally came back to us and ate his snack, which cheered him up a little but he then started saying he didn't feel very well and wanted to go home :-( The next drama was when R ran to her Mum crying, apparently she couldn't keep up with her big sister and C (the girl we brought with us) and had lost them and was all upset. After a hug from her Mum she cheered up :-) Until she and the older two girls came running to me to tell us that a bigger boy had been pushing them and swearing at them!! We told them to ignore the boy, who was obviously a bit of a thug, and asked the three of them to "look after" Princess Lollipop in the toddler area for us for a few minutes. This distracted the girls and they were delighted to have a "living doll" to play with!! They were soon happy enough to go and play in the older kids area again :-)

Finally the children were called to the party room to eat. I'd booked a cold buffet for the food (it was on special offer lol) and thought the variety of food provided was good, the amount of food to feed 10 older children and one Princess Lollipop was paltry! The children ate almost everything and I'm sure if there had been more available they would have eaten more! The dessert was a choice of one item from a plate of tiny cakes and biscuits (eg one jaffa cake!) which seemed very stingy!! The children didn't complain, although I'm sure they'll all want something more to eat when they get home!!

There was time for a little bit more playing and I hoped there would be no more drama, but there was! This time some of the children were playing football in the "ball enclosure" when Little Prince came out sobbing and wouldn't tell us what was wrong :-( After a lot of hugs and comforting from Daddy he told us that J had punched and hurt him, this was confirmed by T's Mum who had seen it all happen. J obviously realised he was in trouble and ran and hid in the toilets!! When he came out I went over and told him it wasn't nice to hurt people and that he had to come and apologise to Little Prince, he did so immediately and the boys shook hands and ran off to find something else to play together :-) I do like that about boys that all the hurts and fighting can be so quickly sorted out and forgotten, girls (well our older two at least) seem a LOT more complicated!!

When the children started to leave, Little Prince gave out the party bags and thanked each friend for coming to his party and saying goodbye :-) As party hosts we had to stay until all the others had left, but finally it was our turn to pack up and get to the car. We dropped C off at her house and then came home. Little Prince was allowed to open one present tonight, as I didn't want him getting over excited just before bedtime, its hard enough to get him to settle down at the moment!! He opened his present from H & L, and it was a Disney 20Q - he loves it and has taken it to bed to play on instead of reading tonight! I was so upset though as Lil Sis has got him a 20Q!!! Sorry Lil Sis, we'll have to see if we can exchange your present :-(

After having a snack it was time for Little Prince to get ready for bed, and like I said he didn't want to read Harry Potter tonight, he wanted to play on his 20Q game. As is becoming more and more usual it takes him hours to settle down and I can still hear him banging around in his room and its after 10pm! I wish he'd go to sleep as I've got all his presents to wrap up before I can go to bed!!