It's my party (and I'll cry if I want to...)

It's May – although I'm writing this wrapped in a fleece – and that means the start of the children's outdoor party season. With communions and summer birthdays to celebrate, expect the air to be filled with the sound of inflating bouncy castles as crowds of sugar-happy kids take to the great outdoors.

 

I think the post-exam party my Leaving Certer has planned will be fuelled by stimulants other than Fanta, and since I doubt if either of my two June babies have a longing for treasure hunts in the garden, it looks like my children's parties are over. Thank God.

 

It's all because of June 2005. Middle Child was particularly popular with the girls at his Montessori school, so I was looking forward to a gentler sort of party than the usual bedlam of water pistols and rugby tackles. I sweated over trays of buns and cakes that I felt sure would not end up ground into the floor this time. I even tied the dog up outside, as he usually ended up in the thick of things, going wild with delight as he planted his muddy paws on everyone and scoffed their chocolate.

 

Sure enough, the guests arrived in the kind of finery I had never seen at my first boy's muddy revels. One of the mini ladies was particularly captivating, all aglow in layers of snowy cotton, from her broderie anglaise frock to her pretty knitted cardigan, frilly white ankle socks, and pristine sandals.

 

Things continued to go well until it was time for birthday cake. Then I discovered that four-year-old girls can scream like no other earthly beings. I rushed to the back door in time to see the snow queen being escorted inside. Only this was a very different little girl to the one who had arrived in mini bride mode. Think the restaurant scene in The Untouchables, when the mobster gets whacked.

 

For a sickening moment, I thought our gentle mutt had somehow lost his already limited mind and ripped the little beauty's face. On closer inspection, it turned out that she had tripped and bitten her lip. Her mother was extremely understanding, but the memory of driving a weeping princess home in a blood-stained frock is the kind of thing that makes you thankful that all teenagers want for their birthdays is wads of cash.

 

Aoife O'Carroll is a separated mum living in Co Kerry with her two boys aged 17 and 14, and a girl aged 10.

 

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