Tag Archives: birthday party

The birthday party conveyor belt

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Son2 turned six over Eid and, being at the age where he still wants huge birthday parties attended by his whole class, I did what any self-respecting, time-poor mum would do: outsourced the whole thing.

All I had to do was send the invites and manage the guest list, but, of course, when the day dawned, I still felt that sense of trepidation that accompanies hosting a children’s party for 20, especially the first one of the school year when the mums aren’t yet jaded by sugar-fuelled class parties.

The birthday bounce: An adrenaline rush with a soft landing. What not to love?

The birthday bounce: An adrenaline rush with a soft landing. What’s not to love?

The venue was Bounce. The urban, trampoline playground loaded with springs and circus-grade sponge, in Al Quoz. Despite the Eid holiday, it seemed almost everyone could come – after all, what five year old doesn’t jump (excuse the pun) at the chance to don rainbow-coloured gripper socks and bounce off the walls?

As Son2’s classmates turned up, I literally lost count, and with three parties running simultaneously, the place was getting crowded. Fair play to Bounce though, it was organised chaos. A young, energetic bounce master took the children round all the different areas: the freestyle trampolines; the airbag-fitted section; the 45-degree trampolines; and the dodge-ball court. Not that I saw any of this: I was too busy chasing sandwich platters and persuading the venue not to give the kids coca-cola (on top of all the bouncing, ice cream cake and lolly bags, the mums would have killed me!)

Talking of the mums, it’s a new crop this year as the classes have been mixed up, so I also did my best to mingle with the ones who stayed to watch.

Thankfully, there were no injuries, and all the children safely made it to the half-hour-long food and cake part of the party, where they were rushed through a meal of chicken nuggets (I know, the healthy option, for 20, was too expensive), the singing Happy Birthday bit, and the chocolate Baskin Robbins cake.

“We’ve got about five minutes, then everyone will need to vacate,” the party master told me towards the end, eyeing his watch. And you should have seen how fast he got the children to clear the decks in preparation for the next onslaught, and how experienced he was at hurriedly sweeping everything, including the left-over cake, into black bin bags.

“How many of these parties do you have today?” I asked, out of interest, as we were shuffled out.

“22,” he replied. (I’ll repeat that, 22!) Honestly, come up with a cool new idea for children’s parties here in Dubai, and you can make a FORTUNE!

Enjoy it while it lasts kiddos: there's another 21 parties to cram in!

Big business: Enjoy it while it lasts kiddos – there’s another 21 parties to cram in!

The pre-party panic

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On Saturday morning, my four-year-old dragged me from a blissful state of slumber even earlier than normal.

I heard the pitter-patter of his feet getting louder as he crossed the landing, then within seconds he was standing by my side of the bed, squealing:

“Mummee, is it my birthday today?”

“No, it isn’t,” I mumbled, half-asleep. “That was last week.”

Then, as my brain began to muster, “Oh yes! Oh God. It’s your party!”

Everything came flooding back as I woke more fully. The venue, the cake, the number of guests expected (23, plus parents), the food. Everything had been outsourced, but I hadn’t heard from the organiser in several days, despite my attempts to wrestle the answers to a couple of questions from her.

Here are some snippets of conversation from the next few anxiety-filled hours:

They’re smiling NOW, but my face wasn’t a happy one three hours before!

LB: “Is it my party now?”

Me: “No darling, it’s after lunch.”

“She still hasn’t replied to my email.”

LB: “Is it lunchtime now?”

Me: “Six hours to go [counting the hours out on my fingers]. First breakfast, then lunch, then it’s time for your party.”

“She’s not answering her phone. WHY is she not getting back to me?” [remembering glumly how the booking was messed up to begin with)

“It’s the first party of the new school year – I blanket-invited the whole class and nearly everyone said yes!”

“What if we get there and it’s all locked up?” [cringes with the predicted embarrassment]

LB: “Can we have lunch now?”

Me: “We haven’t had breakfast yet, love.”

“Her phone is OFF. We should never have given this party a Titanic theme.”

“It’s a sinking ship” [tries to think of an escape plan and fails]

LB: “CAN.WE.GO.TO.MY.PARTY.NOW?”

After a couple of hours, DH gets in the car and drives there to put me out of my misery! “Don’t worry!’ he texts 30 minutes later. “They’re ready.”

PHEW! “And the cake?” I texted back at lightening speed.

“It’s here – pink with a princess on.” [very funny, DH!]

To be fair, the party was great – apart from the gift bags, which they forgot; the song played during Musical Chairs (Sexy and I Know It!); and the miscalculated bill. The best bit was this cake, complete with chocolate frosting waves. Thank goodness that’s over.

Party time: Wrap the mummy

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It was LB’s fourth birthday yesterday! How that went so fast, I don’t know. It honestly feels like just the other day that I was heavily pregnant in the UK and had to text my husband in Dubai at 5 in the afternoon to say:

“Can you get to London by 8am? Ghengis [yes, that was his working title!] needs to be born in the morning.”

Amazingly, DH made it! Just!

Last year, we had a very small party at home and, because BB’s birthday is the next month, we did a family day-out to Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi.

The perfect birthday outing for car-mad small boys. Surely?

“I can juggle or bend balloons – for a small fee”

They STILL haven’t forgiven me!

What they really wanted was a big playarea party – each – with all their friends, presents, cake, games, entertainment, a party host bellowing into a microphone, balloons and chaos. The kind of event that causes mummy to lose sleep and requires daddy to sell a kidney to pay for it.

So this week I’ve been busy organising LB’s out-sourced party – it won’t be anything lavish, and certainly nowhere near the scale of a birthday his brother attended earlier this year at the Atlantis hotel, with valet parking, the aquarium and Apple Mac computer room at guests’ disposal.

But, even so, it seems the tab for throwing a children’s party these days is always going to be more than you bargained for.

So far:

– Use of playarea for 2 hours CHECK

– Party host CHECK

– Kid’s meal for 20-plus children CHECK

– Cake (with Titanic picture) CHECK

– Party bags CHECK

– Catering for adult guests (so they’re not sent home needing to lie down in a darkened room and/or apply wine) CHECK

– Balloons (blue and silver) CHECK

But, wait, there’s more. You can fork out extra for a theme, or a magician. Provide a helium balloon for each child to take home. Book a sideshow, such as face painting. Or pick a couple of games for the children to play, charged per head.

And, the trouble is – such is the money-grabbing nature of the party industry – you can never be quite sure what you’ll actually get for all this expense.

“Could we have musical chairs please,” I decided when going over the details this week.

“And what’s this?” I asked, pointing at the Wrap the Mummy option, there in black-and-white on the booking form.

“Wrap the Mummy? Hmmm. I don’t actually know – we got it off the Internet,” was the reply.

“But would you like a 250 dirham piñata?”

Kids’ parties: Love ’em or hate ’em?

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I just read a fascinating post over at Asia Vu about how gift-giving in Korea is a little different from what we’re used to. The Koreans take a very practical approach and so it’s perfectly normal to give toilet roll or laundry detergent as a house-warming gift, or rice as a participation gift.

And I found myself thinking, how very useful indeed – wouldn’t that take a lot of the stress out of selecting a gift? Especially when you’re buying a present for someone you’ve never met before, like I was yesterday.

LB got invited to a party – his first that was in no way connected to his big brother – and, though I didn’t know the mum, the child, or any of the guests for that matter, taking him along seemed the right thing to do.

I popped into our local Early Learning Centre to buy a gift and went through my usual conundrum of finding something that was age/gender appropriate, wouldn’t drive the parents crazy, wouldn’t cause injury and cost enough so I wouldn’t look stingy but wasn’t overly expensive.

If we were in Korea, I perhaps could have bought a pack of diapers from the supermarket – not only easy peasy, but also guaranteed to be useful.


Anyway, this morning as we were getting ready for the birthday brunch, it became clear LB had gotten out of bed on the wrong side. He wasn’t happy at all. We managed to navigate the getting dressed part (which can take 20 minutes or more as he rejects all the outfits I pull out), but the tantrum trigger turned out to be which car we took.

“You’ll get cake,” I told him, to bribe a kicking-and-screaming LB to get into the car he didn’t want to ride in.

And so perhaps it was my fault that when we arrived, he made a beeline for the three-tiered, homemade cake and refused to move.

What could have been


So much for meeting other mums – I had my work cut out for much of the party guarding the cake to make sure LB didn’t start devouring the frosting.

But, despite his unsociableness today (which really made me wonder why on earth I’d bothered to bring him), we did manage to make an impression. The moment LB had been waiting for arrived – Happy Birthday was sung and the cake was cut. In his excitement, LB ran over – at the last second taking a tumble and crashing headlong into the cake table.

The cake wobbled precariously. The mum who’d lovingly made it diplomatically carried on cutting slices, while I scooped up LB and peered at the bump on his forehead.

Thank goodness, the cake didn’t go flying – and thank goodness they didn’t open our present later to find a pack of diapers.

PHOTO CREDITS: Free Clipart; zazzle.com; Clipartoday

Celebrations: It’s a boy!

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My dear friend has had a beautiful baby boy – the cutest bundle of sleep-stealing, life-changing loveliness.

And it was all so exciting, because the wonders of modern technology meant she was on Facebook throughout much of her labour – right up until her last petrified post stating that if the baby didn’t turn in the next 15 minutes, she would have to have a c-section.

I tried to reassure her, and as her friends and family around the world did the same, I could barely tear myself away from the computer to go to bed. In fact, I actually got up in the night to check on her progress.

Happily, all went well – though she was naturally none too impressed that here in Dubai you’re given aspirin as pain relief afterwards, rather than the fabulous narcotics you get after a c-section in the States.

Of course the arrival of such a gorgeous baby boy takes me right back to the birth of my two, and so it was with utter amazement that today we celebrated the third birthday of my littlest boy.

Time flies, it really does – and as the years roll by, I think my memory might be taking flight too. Because, despite having learnt this lesson before, I thought it would be a good idea to hold a little birthday tea party for LB.

There’s clearly something about child rearing that makes you wake up in a tidy (and in the morning child-free) home and think, “Aw, LB’s turning three – wouldn’t it be lovely to have all his little friends over, sugar ‘em up and let them run wild?”

I’d planned to keep it on the small side, ie, just LB and his brother, but at about 10am I started inviting people, which, when you live in company accommodation, tends to snowball – plus BB took it upon himself to invite a couple of friends from his school bus.

I should also know by now that birthdays that start at 5.30am always end in tears – not from LB but from his more highly strung brother, who ate his body weight in chocolate, acted totally demented and will surely have a hangover tomorrow.

There was some confusion over whose birthday it was. More experienced in such matters, BB thought it was his and opened all the presents. (“I was just showing him how to open them, Mumm-eee”) – and so not surprisingly LB thought the pass-the-parcel I’d spent ages wrapping up was rightfully his.

Once wrestled off him, I tried to find a suitable children’s song on the iPod to accompany our game, but the kids (3,4 and 5 year olds) had a special request: Lady Gaga!!!

The balloons were a hit, though popped like a car backfiring one by one, then the older kids started chasing each other round the house and there was a scary moment when I thought I might have to take one girl home and tell her mother she’d knocked her front teeth out (thankfully, she was fine!).

The kids seemed to have a blast, though, and the adults in attendance were chatting happily, so perhaps it was just me who was stressed to high heaven and wishing I could lie down in a locked, darkened room.

But now that it’s wine o’clock and the house is quiet again, it all seems like good fun – see, that special form of child-induced amnesia is already setting in!

PICTURE CREDIT: www.school-clip-art.com; GraphicsHunt