Party Party Party

Oh how lovely it is to blog again. Even just to use my laptop again feels amazing. You see Husband got a DS game machine for his birthday in January. It sat perched above our dining room cabinet for many a month while he claimed he was getting it 'set up.' Then a friend and her family came to stay and her Husband offered to 'set it up' and asked where the all important R4 card was that made it all happen. Turns out Husband had rammed said R4 card far into the depths of one of my laptop's little orifices. Nice. so last week he took my trusty laptop into his work to get the card removed. The operation went well and the IT boys in his hotel also cleaned it up - a little botox along with the op. It looked spick and span when it returned and I began to type. That was when I discovered that it wouldn't let my password log in correctly, oh and the letter 'n' no longer worked. Joy. Ever tried writing a book with no 'n'? N is in 'aNgry' and 'aNNoyed' and 'HusbaNd is a kNob.'

Back went the laptop only to discover we now needed a new keyboard. After much faffing - it is back, replete with new keyboard. The letters are not as pronounced as they were, but I won't be picky. It works and I have an N. NNNNNNNNNNNNN. Feels good.

Life at the mo? Is one long party party party. Yes, the social calendar is jammed for the next few weeks - with parties. 5 in 3 weeks. 7 in 5 weeks counting Sproglet's own. Yes, I am talking of course about kid's parties. The bane of my life. Sproglet's was last week - Husband says it is his last big shindig until he is 18 as it cost us an arm a leg and a head. We had balloons, pass the sodding parcel and an animal man who came with a skunk, tarantula, giant lizard, hedgehog, cockroachy thing, tortoise, chinchilla, owl and 2 snakes - one of which the kids wore round their necks. Followed by pizza, crisps, a mound of chocolate covered home baked stuff (all the food groups covered I think?) and then an enormous if somewhat phallic spiderman cake. Next day Sproglet complained that animal man hadn't brought a frog (which he usually does when he hosts the same show at Husband's work's kid's Xmas parties). At that point I wanted to strangle the small spoilt child. We served Pimms to loosen up the somewhat stiff parents and also to calm our own nerves - what if no kids turned up? At one point it looked like animal man was a no show and my blood ran cold imagining me entertaining 20 4 year olds with finger puppets for 2 hours...

Now popular wee Sproglet has a load of parties to attend himself and unfortunately I have to go with him. I HATE these things more than life... Lots of Mothers standing around in little cliques talking inanely - or, as I found at the last one I went to - lots of Mothers ignoring me. These 3 kids at Sproglet's school had a joint party and not one of the parents said 'hello, I'm X's Mum' when I arrived. The Southern English - so warm. NOT.

One of these Mothers cornered me at school and announced 'You do know that you are having you son's party on the day of the fete?'

I looked blank.

'Obviously not' she said.

'What fete?' I asked.

'The school fete.'

'What time is it on?'

'11-2pm'

'Well my son's party doesn't start until 2pm, so people could do both.'She still looked completely unimpressed.

The day before Sproglet's party he got an invite to another kid's party - but we hadn't invited this kid to his. EEK. What is politically correct in these circumstances? I quickly grabbed a nice Northern Mum I know and asked her. She told me not to worry, you can't invite everyone - at which point class representative, fete warning Mum chipped in with 'you should just have invited the whole class, that's what you do in the first year.'

WHO IS THIS FUCKING ANNOYING WOMAN??? What business is it of hers?? I replied that Sproglet had mates from the old nursery he went to and friends outside school and then wondered, why am I even bothering to answer this Nazi woman? At Sproglet's she swept in at the end and sounded surprised that her son had had a good time. She has since gone back to ignoring me at the school gates. Bliss. She is however, organising a 'Mum's night out' in July. I would rather give birth naturally every day for a year than go. (And we all know how I feel about birth....).

I did have a gleeful moment however, when I took Sproglet to the fete to show the old busybody that you could indeed do both - and as we went to her stall, Sproglet piped up 'where is X (her son's name)?' She shifted uncomfortably and said he should be here by now... But he wasn't. And we were. And we still managed to hold a party on the same day. God, listen to me, why do I even give a flying feck?

Honestly I hate the daily school drop off/pick up more than anything. People mainly treat you like you are a leper with a bad case of BO to boot. Although I have noted that most of the Dad's arre pretty nice - chatty, funny and much warmer than these ice queens. Am hoping that the next run of parties are 'drop offs' - where you can dump your kid and run. The thought of having to stand around like the kid at school who is the last one picked for team sports makes me want to reach for the vodka and being up the duff - I can't. Sproglet now has a room stuffed with more toys than Hamleys and has started talking about his 5th b'day party. Little does he know it will be with one mate eating gruel on toast.

NNNN. Sorry. I just had to.