Birthday Boy

 

“Mum can you not be embarrassing today?” asked my oldest, minutes before his ninth birthday party began.

“How so?”

“Just don’t be embarrassing,” he begged.

“Okay, so is it alright if I wear this to your Ninja Turtle party?” I asked, realising I was wearing a green-striped shirt.

“Okay,” he sighed.

“And can you please not hover round the kitchen asking when the food is going to be ready,” I asked him in return.

“Yep,” he cried distractedly, rushing off to answer the door bell.

Soon me and my house were bombarded by nine boisterous boys, counting my own two, plus birthday boy’s sister so, having just finished a last-minute Ninja Turtle cake, I got stuck into preparing the food.

It’s drop-offs and pick-ups these days – long gone are the baby days when the party was more about entertaining the adults. Flip, I remember the twins’ first birthday party when there were around 100 on the guest list. I’m pretty sure that’s not a journalist’s exaggeration either – between all the friends and family and their kids it was around that figure. Not all of them could make it, thank goodness, for the baby capsules alone took up all of the small lounge.

Organising a party for that many, in between baby feeds and sleeps was quite stressful but nowadays it’s a lot easier, I thought to myself as I put the pizzas in the oven and tried not to over- boil the cocktail sausages.

“Guys come and look at all this pizza,” said birthday boy, who like the Ninja Turtles, is mad-keen on pizza, and had forgotten my plea not to hover round the kitchen.

A trail of boys followed him into the kitchen and then, spotting the food strewn around the bench on various platters, decided they were ravenous.

“Shoo!” I ushered them back out of the kitchen.

Next minute, another lot of boys thundered up the stairs on a mission and filed past. “Mmmm Burger Rings!” exclaimed one, catching site of one of the plates.

They all swarmed in closer like a flock of hungry seagulls. Finally after another ten similar episodes (and that’s no exaggeration either), I locked them outside for the remaining ten minutes while I got the food to the table.

It turns out nine-year-old boys eat a lot. Despite the fact the table was groaning with food, by the end of the party, it had all gone.

Another difference, I noted, was that nine-year-old boys entertain themselves.

“Jodi, can we play hide-‘n’-seek?” one lovely well-mannered boy came and asked.

“Uh, sure,” I replied thinking of the pass the parcel and musical cushions games I had lined up.

As it happened, they spent the majority of the party outside playing hide-n’-seek (minus a few others who were hooked on the Play Station), meaning I had to drag them away for my organised games. However, they still happily partook and the post-junk food musical statues went down a treat with all their new-found energy, as did the dress up and eat chocolate with a knife and fork before the dice lands on six, with a fair amount of cheating there.

Yes, despite the carnage – a whole lot of popped balloons, discarded wrapping paper, dropped food and a trail of muddy footprints throughout the house – birthday parties definitely get easier.

All except for one thing: do you think I could get a happy smiling photo of my birthday boy and his mum?

Never mind, I photo-bombed one of him smiling with his mates. Oops – there went my pact not to be embarrassing mum.

Grocery Shopping Over the Years

The doors swish open and we awkwardly swing inside the supermarket. With no double baby capsule trolleys, I’d had no choice but to grab two trolleys, place a baby in each, pushing one and pulling the other with the toddler trundling along behind “helping” with the motion process. We resemble a choo-choo train.

Negotiating the aisles, we only swipe a few cans off shelves, have three near-miss trolley collisions, but crash repeatedly into the checkout whilst trying to maneuver the ensemble through. We get a few surprised/’cute baby’ looks and a lovely man offers to push a trolley out to the car.

~~~

The doors swish open and I push the single trolley with the pre-schooler trotting along – one toddler is propped up in the seat, the other is in the trolley. By aisle four she is completely submerged with groceries and can be located only by the tuft of orange hair sticking out. Once unearthed at the check-out, she emerges eating an apple and grinning from ear to ear. We get a few ‘cute’ laughs.

~~~

The doors swish open and my tribe goes bull-rushing in. By the end of aisle one, my two pre-schoolers and wee school boy have managed to turn the place into a complete circus and I’m torn between chasing after them and disowning the lot. I consider abandoning the trolley mid-aisle and making a run for it but, after a humbling comment from a fellow shopper, who still saw the ‘cute’ side of it all, I decide to finish the shop, reclaim my children and herd them out of the store.

~~~

The doors swish open and my six-year-old twins and I mosey inconspicuously into the supermarket. Big bro has spotted his friends playing in the park next door and gone to hang out for the duration of the shop. Halfway down aisle one, Master Six abruptly snaps into show-off mode. Simultaneously, Miss Six runs and hides behind my legs.

The cause of the behavioural change becomes apparent in the produce section. Hinewai*, also from room 12, is out shopping with her mother. Hinewai spots the twins and the volume inside the little supermarket rises a few octaves. By the beginning of aisle two, Miss Six has discarded any shyness and Hinewai’s mother and I have become acquainted.

Down aisle three, Hinewai ditches her mother altogether and zooms around my trolley with her classmates. Hinewai’s mother can faintly be heard calling Hinewai back through the boxes of cereal and packets of chips separating aisles two and three.

Round the bend, someone spots Anaru*, also from room 12 and out shopping with his aunty. It is now like Christmas in the super market as the four students of room 12 animatedly reunite only less than one hour after they last saw each other. The volume goes up another few levels and the showing-off is in full-swing. The tribe of four from room 12 have now taken over the entire supermarket and have the attention of everyone within, wondering if they’ve wound up in their local supermarket or the school playground.

The children are not getting the ‘cute looks’, the laughs are a little forced, everybody is speechless – there is no point in talking, the racket is such.

As the doors swish closed behind us, the supermarket is plunged into almost-silence. And from within, there is, no doubt, a collective sigh of relief.

*Names changed.

 

Special Day

Me and my babies.

The audible whispers at 6am woke me on Wednesday. I wasn’t sure what was going on but, next door in the twin’s room, it was high-excitement.

I heard them stealthily but noisily climb the stairs, whispering all the way and closing the kitchen door at the top. Minutes later their brother rose and joined them. What was going on?

And then as my foggy brain cleared, I remembered: it was my birthday!

The night before as I tucked them in, they had asked: “Are you excited mum?”

“No, not really,” I’d replied.

“Well we are.”

“You know I’m not having a party, don’t you?” I reminded them, because for some reason, the word ‘birthday’ to kids, signals party.

Actually I’d been in a grump that night. This year I couldn’t be bothered organising anything – all I wanted was to have a relaxing day off: no rushing out the door, no chores … which meant, to achieve this, I spent all of Tuesday night carrying out my usual mundane Wednesday tasks.

So after work, until late, I was still dusting, tidying, cleaning bathrooms, hovering and mopping, in amongst the usual dinner, bathing, homework, bedtime stories palava. Hence the grump.

However, the kids were so excited, I made sure we ended the day on a good note and eventually went to bed.

As I lay there the next morning wondering what was going on, visions of last year’s breakfast in bed came to mind: dry cereal and little bits of broken toast, because it had got stuck in the toaster, with big globs of marmite and peanut butter (not to mention the huge mess of smeared marmite, crumbs and spilt milk on the bench top). With this in mind, I tried to conjure up an appetite.

They were still busy at it upstairs so I got out of bed and had a quick shower before jumping back into bed, not wanting to spoil their surprise. Another half an hour went by – it was getting quite late and I was actually starting to feel hungry. Finally I got back out of bed, calling out ‘Good morning’, as I approached the kitchen so I didn’t catch them out.

No response.

“Where are my children,” I called as I turned the corner into the lounge.

“Surprise!” they all jumped out from behind the furniture clutching balloons and home-made cards and gifts.

“Oh!”

It turns out they hadn’t been good-naturedly trashing the kitchen after-all, but waiting patiently for me to come upstairs for the last hour while I waited downstairs. Master Eight had even placed a bowl of my cereal next to the computer in case I wanted to check my emails – it seemed they’d decided not to attempt the toast-making this year.

They were so happy and pleased with themselves, I couldn’t think of a nicer way to start the day.

Next I walked the kids up to the school – a rare novelty – where Master Six loudly announced to everyone in sundry it was his mum’s birthday, along with my age (thanks to the little boy who declared ‘Oh my mum and dad are way older than that!’).

Master Eight even allowed me in his class without getting too embarrassed.

Yes it’s the small things that count and, walking home, thankful I managed to leave the school grounds without getting hit on the head by a ball, I thought to myself that, some days, everything is just aligned for everything to go right and today was going to be one of those days.

And it was.