Yesterday was my youngest son’s 11th birthday party.
Yes, you read that right. I’m fifty-five and he’s eleven. Which made me forty- four, when he came barreling through the swing-doors of last-chance saloon, turning life upside down in the way that only babies can.
And from the beginning I’ve always been hyper aware that everything about this baby was a last chance. That I wouldn’t be going through any of the stages again and that the first times of anything, were simultaneously going to the last times.
Which is, I suppose, why I wanted him to have a birthday party at home. One last blow-out before the creeping in of hormones and the seeping away of all that is childish and lego- shaped.
A traditional party.
With games. Pass-the-parcel, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, sausages on sticks and chips and candles and cakes and biscuits shaped in the number of the child’s age (not very exciting at 11), which the kids decorate themselves in a glow of concentration, whilst I sway on the sidelines in a glow of fizzy wine. And jelly or Jell-O as it’s known in the US – which I never have gotten around to making. Not for kids anyway.
I did once make an adult only gin-jelly for a scrap-booking party, (an early 21st century version of the Tupperware party), where my friend E and I ate it, backs against the kitchen counter, knees going numb. Not much scrap-booking got done. It was summer and I stumbled home around four in the morning. S who had hosted the party, and who could outlast any of us, was still going when her husband got up for his commute to work at six. The children, around whom that lovely friendship group had grown, were three and four back then. A lot of Disney movies got played the day after that scrap-booking party, on repeat. Anyway, I digress …
One last party.
My son didn’t want one. Why would he? He can work the TV remotes (how in the name of progress is it necessary to have three separate remote controls nowadays?) better than I can. And when he was six he managed to buy £150 of game gems on something called, Brawl Stars, through an app-type rabbit hole on an iPad that I hadn’t actually been able to turn on for a year. It was a bug! he said when I found out, managing to explain both the gems and his current state of health – because at this point he was standing by the open front door gasping fresh air, having come over all dizzy hearing me on the phone talking to the bank, using words like police and fraud ….
No, he didn’t want a party at home. He wanted his hour at the local louder-than-hell- laser dome. He’s an eleven-year-old boy and his idea of fun is to spend an hour or so being blitzed by flashing lights and deafened by dreadful music, followed by a slice of sodium drenched pizza washed down by a cup of sparkling sugar. Whilst his parents foot the bill … at approximately nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds: PER CHILD.
Reader … I persuaded him!
Hands up, I know I haven’t been that great at all the aspects of mothering, whatever all those aspects are, or are supposed to be. I’ve never packed a school lunch in my life (thank goodness, here in Sweden they’re not allowed). I never was able to refrain from unloading the dishwasher or hanging out the washing, anything, to help pass the time, whilst my teenage daughter explained the interminable plot of the latest dystopian Young Adult novel she was reading and – are you ready for this? – I don’t and never have paired socks!
But I could always throw a great birthday party.
This is strange, considering I’ve never had a party for myself. My wedding was a small affair and there was no engagement do. On my 18th I drank way too much vodka before leaving the house, made it to the pub, threw up in the toilet and was packed into a taxi back home. Nothing on my 21st. A few friends in a club on my thirtieth. Even when my book launches - what a great excuse for a
Buy it now! - link.
… yes, even when it launches, there will be no party. No chinking of glasses and bookish chat and swanning around being introduced as the author, which is the unspoken dream of all of us who write.
And why not? Because I’m sacred of parties. I’m terrified of them. Because …. Because … What if no one comes?
But a kid’s party? A kid’s party is a whole different universe and I’ll tell you why: kids are a whole different species.
The Romantic poet, William Wordsworth once wrote that children come, trailing clouds of glory
And they truly do.
Throwing parties for kids is a joy. They love parties! And they don’t care who knows it! And they’re way too cool to pretend that they have something better to do. Of course they’re coming!
So, my name is Cary and I confess … I love throwing kids parties and I wanted to do it one last time.
I spent the morning of the big day, baking and the evening before drawing donkeys and wrapping sweets.
What more can I say?
The sun shone. The kids ran themselves ragged and shouted themselves hoarse. We didn’t have time for all the games planned but we did pass the parcel and we did pin-the-tail, and those boys, those super-savvy, technological mini- maestros squealed and giggled as excited as any kid who has ever passed a parcel in the known history of passing a parcel. I mean what isn’t there to get excited about?
Phones were handed over and not thought about for three hours. Biscuits were decorated with squeezable coloured sugar. Candles were blown out, paper-airplanes flown, photos were taken, gurning and grinning faces and waggly fingers all pointing at my birthday boy.
Faces that will fade and disappear from memory, as surely as ripples on water.
Because amongst the photographs in my parents’ albums, is a black and white taken at my brother’s birthday party. The boys are of a similar age to my son and his pals of yesterday. Goofy teeth, extraordinarily wide smiles, wispy hair, freckles. They too are gurning and grinning and pointing at my brother, a boy of ten then … nearly sixty now.
And although I don’t know if this was the last children’s birthday party my mother ever threw, I do know that it all passes so quickly. All those first times, that even as we live them, are also our last times …
I had to grab onto one, didn’t I? Try for a moment to pin down something as elusive and fragile, as fleeting and short-lived as a mayfly. Surround and feel encompassed once again in those clouds of childish glory, one last time before the party really is over.
Thanks for reading, and as always, as a self-published writer, it’s just me, a bowl of Maltesers and a whole lot of hustle. So the very best way to support my work is to spread the word. You can do that by pressing the blue button below.
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Wow Cary you are really an incredible writer. You spun that tail in such a way that had me captivated right to the end. Sounds like you are an amazing mom, and I'm sure your son will appreciate the effort you made for him for many years to come!
I loved planning parties for my kids birthdays and the ones at home were always so much fun! Sounds like this was a great one!