Barbie sucks....

My oldest son’s 6th birthday is this weekend.
It also marks the sixth anniversary of my transition from mere mortal to mother.
Six years ago we met the little boy who would change our lives forever. We didn’t know what we were doing when we set off on this rollercoaster ride of parenthood together, us and him. He was there when we fumbled our way into parenthood, went from DINKs (double income no kids) to SINCs (single income no cash). He was there when we stumbled blindly around his first year, figuring out what worked, balancing, sacrificing, Experiencing the gorgeous baby haze, the bellyaching laughs, the sheer joy of seeing him smile, the terror of seeing him ill. He is and continues to be the blueprint from which we seek guidance on our other children. And because of that unique experience we’ll always share a special bond with our first born.
We made all our mistakes with him and learnt together, but we’ve got him here, to his sixth birthday relatively unscathed and relatively sane. Well no actually, scrub that last one.
Now in previous years I’d be stressing for weeks in the run-up to his party – will enough people show up? Will the other mums judge me on my shabby not chic abode? Will the cake blow up? Will anyone end up in casualty? Will the bouncy castle burst? (you know what five year olds are like for leaving lit cigarettes lying around) – just the usual stuff.
This time though, I think through experience, I have decided to leave my stressing till 24 hours before the big day and compress the manic behaviour into one day. I’ll take Friday off to stress, bake, clean and stress some more.
I think I’ve created two monsters with the birthdays I put on. There’s no plain party and simple cake here, that wouldn’t wash. They expect drama and theatrics, fireworks, dancing girls. Each year we have to outdo the last birthday.
Caolan’s birthday party in January had a pirate theme. The husband and I were up half the night transforming our kitchen into an underwater paradise and Granda had to fashion a mammoth functioning treasure chest out of photocopier paper boxes and a bit of sellotape.
Daniel’s is a Speed Racer themed affair. So it’s race tracks out in the garden, paint shops, pit crews and podiums all round. I’m baking a race car cake but will have a Plan B Sainsbury’s special in place just in case.
Caolan was invited to a party this week by a little girl in his nursery class. He was all for it, as his experience of birthdays thus far has been mostly of the boyish variety – all cars, pirates, Power Rangers and football. This little girl was having a Barbie themed bash the thought of which Caolan’s brain simply could not compute.
He told his little friend he wasn’t going on principle as Barbie, princesses and fairies (of the type who don’t leave cold hard cash or presents for teeth) are blood sisters of Beelzebub himself and that the promotion of pink stuff and girly things mustn’t be encouraged. Well no, what he actually said was “Barbie’s stupid”.