Today we had the postponed party for the girls that should have been last Sunday, while the mercury was bursting from the top of thermometers. The morning was an ecstasy of fumbling, rushing round trying to get all the drinks, snacks, cupcakes and ice pops in one place, along with boiled eggs, spoons and water balloons.
We had slightly fewer guests than we’d planned for (people were out of town for the July 4th weekend) but that still meant 9 kids, enough for a good water fight in the park, a ludicrous game with cups of water my wife orchestrated, and then the egg and spoon race, before we redeployed to our neighbours’ back garden, where the children sprayed one another with water pistols in between eating cupcakes.
Apart from one or two screaming episodes, the whole afternoon was quite peaceful, and although the evening was the usual two hour struggle to get anyone to go to sleep, everything was quite satisfactory. We slumped onto the sofa about ten, watched Onward, a fun Disney movie we’re scared to show our daughters, and then to bed after one episode of Ted Lasso. So that was a day. One more birthday to go…