Happy Birthday Billy

06 July 2003

Yesterday was Billy's 4th birthday. My little boy is growing up...



The day began with a rather rapid unwrapping of his presents. It reminded me of Edward Scissorhands cutting hair - but with strips of wrapping paper flying everywhere. He then moved onto opening cards which began in a rather civilised way with Billy saying things like "...oooww a cat with a fishing rod" and "...aaah a cuddly bear". This soon ended once he realised some of them also contained fivers - we then moved into a truly capitalist hunt for money with scant regard to the birthday cards containing it. All the cash he got was notes making the hunt trickier. When I was a kid any money I got for my birthday was always coins and so you could tell before opening whether the card in question would be financially rewarding.



At 3.00pm eight of Billies school mates arrived for Billy's party. All parents left at 3.01pm leaving us to keep the unruly four year-olds under control for two hours. The party went really well with the kids generally doing what they wanted in the garden. This was punctuated by a couple of preplanned games.



We started with a "pin the patch on the pirate" game won by Freya (4) - who also helped entertain us adults by singing American Pie in Billy's microphone - sure makes a change from the usual Wheels on the Bus and Wind the Bobbin Up. Next came the obligatory pass the parcel won by Ben. We finished with a pirate treasure hunt with several clues, each leading to the next. One hidden in a sand castle another under a slide, you get the idea, culminating with a box of treasure full of necklaces, jewels, badges and dozens of chocolate coins. I would highly recommend this as a way to finish a kids party as everybody wins and there are no long faces from the losers.



We managed to survive the party and I really enjoyed it too! I must brush up on my childrens magic for next year.

Hello. My name is Roy. I live in rural Oxfordshire.

This is my blog. I write about things that interest me, make me laugh or that I want to remember.