Late September 2007
Rhiannon's birthday always catches me by surprise, which is ridiculous really. The date of her birth is obviously etched into my psyche - 12th October. But planning for it has been left until the last minute this year.
The only reason I can think for this appalling memory lapse is that the new school term started only a few weeks ago and with all the new things I have to learn / do / organise / pay for, the fact that a certain little girl's birthday is looming gets squeezed out of my mind.
That is, until she starts asking how long it is until her party. What party? Heck!
The school have a policy of mixing all the children up each year, so she's no longer in a class with any her friends. There are four classes per year group. I'm not sure I approve, but can understand the reasoning from an adult point of view: the expat community is extremely fluid and the school takes the view that separating friends helps children adapt to when they eventually move away. From a child's point of view, however, this is disastrous.
So we decide to go all out this year and invite her entire class, plus her friends from reception year. That's a lot of kids!
In the UK, we had soft-play areas where all the stress of party-planning was removed. The children could run riot for a couple of hours, then the venue provided food for them. Not here though. There aren't any soft-play areas, no readily available child-friendly halls or restaurants prepared to put up with thirty 5 and 6 year olds; just nowhere (that I could find) to hold a party.
Under NO circumstances am I having the party at home. Even the mere thought of that sends me rocking into the corner.
It's too late in the year to hold a party outside - it's not that cold, but it is typhoon season so the weather is unpredictable.
What to do?
Tim came to the rescue, as ever, what a brainwave! We'd hire the big hall at his workplace. Perfect!
Invitations are quickly sent out with instructions to RSVP. It's vital to get the RSVP so that a) I know how many goodie bags to make and b) security to get to the hall needs to be sorted out. (OK, perhaps these points should have been reversed…!)
Rhiannon's very much into the "Under Sea" thing so Tim and I decide to decorate the hall with streamers of seaweed, shiny fish and other stuff on the walls to make it less "officey". I delegate much of the design work to him as I have loads of work on and he's a fantastic artist. We pop over to take photos in order to plan further. It's a BIG room.
Having so many children potentially coming we decide to have stations of activity and rotate the kids between them. Some crafty things, I will face-paint, pin the necklace on Ariel, and a couple of other activities I can't remember now.
Party Day is set for Sunday 14th October. So just over two weeks to sort it out. YIKES!
