Kids parties, Converse and waterfall braids. And bravery.

Wow, what a morning!

Why is it that I cannot prise myself out of bed on a weekday morning without the aid of the snooze button, a sinkful of caffeine, a can opener and threat of being unemployed, yet on a lovely, rainy, lazy Saturday morning the eyes pop open at 6am and refuse to close?

So I crawled into bed with my darling E (loving his new queen size bed, despite pink sheets for the duration!)  for a snuggle until we decided to make an early start of it and go out for brekky.

It was a red tights day today, I could just feel it. When the red tights call, you must answer.

Metro Cafe - where else? For once, E prised himself away from the pancakes with choc fudge sauce (hold the berry coulis) and ordered his second favourite...bacon and toast. I jokingly asked for a 'bucketful of skinny cap' as I'd foregone my morning coffee in anticipation...only for them to deliver me a milkshake sized glass brimming with caffeine and steaming milk...YUM. No wonder we keep going back!

We got invited to fellow blogger Willow's kids party this morning and of course, leaving things to the last minute had to race out and buy gifts, wrap them and get there by 10am. In hindsight the early start was pretty necessary and inevitable!

So buying presents for an 8 year old boy and a 10 year old girl (Willow's kids are born a few years and a single day apart)...

The boy part is easy! With an inhouse expert, I didn't even need to outsource this one. It's a no-brainer. Ninjago all the way.

Willow's daughter is a bit harder. She's a really girly girl, so it should be really easy right? I mean, I'm a precious girly girl from way back. But anyone who's only had boys will totally empathise with me when I say it's like a whole different world when you venture over into that sea of pink...

The choices! OMG, I used to moan and complain when E was younger that it was just so HARD to buy for boys as approx. 90% of floorspace is dedicated to girls. But realistically it makes the choices pretty damn easy, as there's pretty much just no choice. So stepping over that line into girl territory is really kinda frightening and extremely overwhelming.

Not only is there the crazy number of choices (makeup? clothes? toys? the list goes on) but there's trying to fit the present to the girl in question, and also trying to comprehend the trends (heaven forbid you get something 'lame' or 'uncool'). I'm all over the boy trends, but the girls these days are a bit of a mystery.

I was briefed that A was going through a 'punk rock' stage so I really wanted to have a bit of fun with it. Personally I'm totally down with any little girl wanting to express herself through clothes and accessories and part of the fun of being a pre-teen is experimenting with your look (note: punk rock seems to equal ho-bag in many pre-teen shops these days...sorry, NOT cool).

I was pretty excited thinking of all the things I could get her until I was faced with it all and frankly just stood there going....um......um.....

E's suggestion of black lipstick was vetoed as I would like to remain friends with W after the party.

We checked out all the Monster High gear, which I know she loves, but as I know she currently has the world's largest collection of MH accoutrements, I vetoed that too in case I got her something she already had.

Over to the clothes...and me daydreaming about wishing they'd make this stuff in MY size!

In the end we selected a seriously cute red dress that was sufficiently punk rock but also sufficiently 'normal' enough that W will still speak to me afterwards...although it was a close run thing with simply the cutest little black and red pleated skirt, although I suspect when on the body might resemble more of a headband than a skirt.

Anyway by the time we did this, we had to race around quickly to buy E a new pair of shoes (his first Converse! woohoo) due to his foot literally coming out of his last pair of trainers and then get to the party.

So my stance on parties is that the more the merrier is a total load of BS. Sorry, unless you bring me valium and a bucketful of booze, 30 screaming kids does not a merry mummy make (try saying THAT after valium and a bucketful of champagne). A civilized 4-6 kids in an area large enough to keep the decibel level AWAY from my ears is my idea of a party, thank you very much.

So my hat is off to W for having a joint 30 children strong, 8 year old boy/10 year old girl party, on a day that threatened rain at any second in a reasonably small inside environment. Brave girl.

In the end the logistics of such an exercise became overwhelming and we shunted the kids outside with not a little relief.

The girls were pretty easy, makeovers in the bedroom and dancing in the lounge room and they were pretty much sorted...until I described my waterfall braid to them....

Fatal error.

So for the rest of the party, there I was parked on the couch braiding girl after girl's hair in identical styles.

It was my finest hour...in the opinion of the girls.

(note to self: keep mouth SHUT in future).

So then at the end came the present opening, and it was only then that I realised the genius of W's plan.

15 kids apiece = 15 presents apiece.

Brilliant.

Is sanity a reasonable trade-off for such an awesome haul?

Questions to ponder.

So anyway, we are now home and I'm EXHAUSTED. All that hair-doing is shattering, I'll stick to office-work thanks very much!

Thanks W for an awesome morning with your beautiful family! Now we can gear up for E's birthday on Thursday, knowing that if I can survive 30 screaming kids, I'm quite prepared for a 4-strong sleepover next weekend!

xx