Three Robins and a lot of superheroes
I have a son who is very original. For example, he enjoys making car noises, pretending to be a robot, and reading about dinosaurs. Particularly pirate dinosaurs. I know – unheard of for a four year old boy. Clearly dressing him in pink tee-shirts and encouraging dancing has done NOTHING in the battle against gender stereotyping. But more than dinosaurs and cars and trains, above all other things he wants to be a superhero (his special power would apparently be ‘running faster than daddy’ – I never said he was a genius). And so, for his birthday all he wanted in the world was a superhero party. Which causes some distress for a mother who is ambivalent about superheroes and character-based parties in general. So I turned to my friend da Internet – and discovered a lovely world of non-Pixar superhero parties. And thus a superhero party that suited both mother and son was initiated.
A few years ago when I cut teddy bear shapes out of sandwiches and laid out red and white gingham fabric and called it a teddy bear’s picnic, I thought I was SO clever. And then I started looking for accessories for the next party. THE HORROR. I was RUBBISH at parties. (see also Mouse Party) In a world of people with more styling skills, more DIY ability, more money, more attention to detail and more originality, I had sunk to rank amateur status. Depression set it. Until I realised I had one skill up my sleeve – I’m nothing if not a skilled Internet researcher (some my husband may call it d*cking around on the computer, I call it research). However, having just come off the back of way too much time invested in a mouse party, not to mention a 40th celebration, this was the low-key small party of the season. So see below for the not-fancy-but-I’m-trying-OK superhero party. Can we also bear in mind that it was over 30 degrees in October in London which is UNHEARD of and we were all dying of heat. If you want to see some truly decent superhero parties – there are some links at the end. Also, check out our pinterest site – it is super cool. Boom boom.
Super table. I believe I NEED to invest in a proper back drop. My husband thinks NEED is overdoing it. His expression was actually a little stronger.
So these were my attempt at batman coloured jellies. They looked ace for about five minutes . A small tip for would-be jelly makers - if it's over 30 degrees, a layered yellow and black jelly quickly becomes brown. Even four year olds not too keen on warm brown jelly slush.
I know - lollies in a bowl. Genius. Tutorial to come.
Black bat juice at the birthday boy's request. On a scale of 1-10, how bad would it be just to add massive amounts of food colouring to normal water to make it go black? I would never do that.
Jeez, there really wasn't a shedload of effort in this was there? No, I didn't make the cookies. I didn't even ice them. I did however draw the letter T in icing. And I did stamp out stars and put yellow sprinkles on them. I'd give that a C+ for effort. Reminds me of year seven chemistry comments to be honest.
Now that those batmans have p*ssed off....
Some far more impressive superhero parties:
Spiderman party from Smita at The Party Wall.
Very cute comic superhero party from Chelsea at Life Frosting.
Gorgeous superhero party from Ma’ Cake.
And our pinterest site for many many more….
Christmas Gifts to Inspire Your Child’s Creative Side
As much as we all try and remain completely impartial regarding the direction in which we steer our kids’ interests, there is a very fine line between nurturing a child’s natural abilities, encouraging their given interests (very important) and steering them towards the achievement of your own unfulfilled ambitions and lost hopes and desires. I am of course not one of these parents but, as luck would have it, my children have exhibited some very early genius in their play with lego. So when I crouch by their cots at night whispering ‘architect, architect, architect’ in to their sweet little ears I am merely celebrating the good fortune that has ensured that their natural abilities and my hopes for them happily coincide on a path to greatness.
This complete lack of self-interest and impartial guidance will undoubtedly ensure that we avoid tnhat whole messy parent-child conflict in this area.
I do recognise, however, that things don’t always go according to plan and in my open mindedness I don’t want to discourage my children from being anything they want to be. At least not right now. Unfortunately, creative professions don’t have the cache they should for a toddler. It’s challenging to dress your child as an architect, art director, costume designer, scriptwriter, filmmaker or commercially successful artist on dress-up day. Black rimmed glasses and turtlenecks just don’t have the same impact as a white coat and stethoscope or fireman outfit.
Kids Halloween Party Inspiration
I didn’t throw a party for my son’s first or second birthday. I don’t mean I didn’t do much. We literally just let it slip by. No balloons, no banners, no cake and not even presents. I didn’t feel too bad about the no presents thing for the first birthday but I feel slightly evil about the second birthday. We were travelling and rather than haul gifts around we decided he would be none the wiser if we gave him his gifts when we arrived home. It’s true he didn’t note the passing of his birthday on the calendar, but I was quite disappointed. It’s not as much fun giving presents on a random day when you haven’t whipped your child up in to a frenzy of excitement and confusion (wtf is going on? Why they all grinning at me like madmen? Oh PRESENTS!).
All this is my way of pointing out that you won’t be getting anything nearly as lovely as Kate’s mouse party from my party styling any time in the near future. However I have put quite a lot of time in to looking for other people’s Halloween Party inspiration this week, hoping to bring you someone else’s beautiful party. Although I haven’t managed to put together a full party collection, here are some of my favourite Halloween party accessories – should you be thinking of pulling all this together before Monday.
A mouse party for our little mouse
The invitation that started the magic. Or - the neverending birthday pain in the ar*se, as husband so charmlingly puts it.
We’ve been spending a lot of time recently talking about children’s birthday parties. Well, I have been talking, Jacqui has been doing some head shaking. And some muttering under her breath. But I think secretly she is obsessed as I am. Because I am a little bit. I think it’s the cake. And maybe the idea of bunting – I do love a bit of bunting. But mostly the cake. Oh, and umm of course, the delight on small children’s faces.
Spam of the week
The following was left on a post about my disappearing career. I’m worried about the potential connection they see.
”Dogs that lose a limb in an smash up or amputation will not be emotionally hurt the way that human beings are in that kind of case. Canines just want to learn how to move in the absence of amputated leg, that is it. They don’t feel sad about it. So just love your pooch as usual and do not use up any time pitying it.”
Craft is the only way you will truly feel like a real mother.
It’s finally happened. Today I did craft. I am sorry it has been so long since I have written a post. I am even sorrier that it has taken craft to get me to put pen to paper. Or finger to keyboard. But such is my life right at present that craft has actually done it.
Let me not offend those crafty types amongst us. I have the utmost admiration for crafty people, with their scrapbooks and fabric and natty little sewing machines, whipping up natty little crafty things. But craft is not for me. I don’t have a natty little bone in my body. My handwriting is so bad that I got extra time in my final school exams to rewrite my essays. And if my handwriting is so bad, you can only imagine what my drawing is like. It’s a combination of very little patience, even less of an artistic eye and a solid belief (grounded in reality) that anything I attempt will generally end in a bloody finger, lots of swear words and something that frankly, looks like crap that my three year old could have made. And this is from a child that thinks drawing a black dot on a piece of paper and sticky taping it to his chest means he is wearing a superhero badge.
Top 5 Comments New Mums Would Rather Not Hear
I’ve just rounded out 6 months of new motherhood (actually the second new motherhood, if you know what I mean) and Kate 6 weeks, so I thought it would be timely to give you my list of top 5 things new Mums don’t like to hear.
- When are you due? I think we all understand why this is number 1. No need to draw a picture. Only marginally better than the straight out, not quite as innocent and far more direct, “God you’ve still got quite a stomach, when does it go down?”
- Is that your grandson? GUTTING. I saw an actual real life exchange of this very nature. “No, this is my son” came restrained answer through gritted teeth as veins visibly throbbed in the neck. As a helpless bystander to this train wreck I mentally tried to stop the words as they came out of the offender’s mouth and jam them back in from whence they came, visualising myself goalkeeper style diving to catch them before they reached the victim’s ears. Alas, there was no hope. Those words slammed like a freight train in to new mum’s stomach so hard you could almost hear the air knocked out of her.
Breastfeed and return to work? Don’t count on it.
photo credit: c r z
Well most wouldn’t even attempt it, but there are a lucky few that perhaps have flexible hours, an understanding boss and colleagues, a quiet place in the office where they can express milk and the ability to get away from their desk for about 20 minutes at pretty much exactly the same time each day to do so, and these people could perhaps give it a try.
I am one of the lucky people whose work pretty much meets all those criteria – except for occasionally, but not often, not being able to get away to express for 20 minutes at exactly the right time. The baby is five months old and I wanted to continue breastfeeding until she was at least six months. But the breastfeeding-after-returning-to-work isn’t working out.
I started a new job last week. Just four hours in the morning. Perfect, one would think (except for the pay that barely makes it worth working after paying for childcare, but that’s for another post). I thought I could easily continue breastfeeding with this kind of easing-back-into-it schedule, ‘The baby will only skip one feed and I can express one feed at work’.
Newborn baby fug review – iBaby feed
Not me
No, I’m not actually writing a review of my new baby. Although if I was, it would be quite glowing at this point. Apart from her propensity to cause scream-out-loud-pain to my left nipple. (Sorry, that noise you heard? That was the sound of our twenty male readers rushing out the door – yes, you may run, but you can’t hide from the screams you can probably hear from West London).
So I’m pretty much head over nappy in the 10 day old new-born fug. Forgive me please if I cannot wax lyrical this week on the situation in Syria as I might usually do on these hallowed pink pages. And I fear my cutting edge wit has deserted me a little in a haze of washing little white bodysuits, sleeping bolt upright with iPhone in hand, lying on the couch eating reverse double choc chip cookies (how I loathe you so, your sweet sweet reverse white choc chip evilness) oh, and managing aforementioned nipple pain (keep on walkin’ guys).
Kate pops too
No I’m not talking about Kate’s dance moves. Although I can assure you she can pull off the snap and pop manoeuvre competently. No I am speaking of child birth. Yes, right on the heels (well, 5 months after…heel-ish) of Kate’s announcement, “Jacqui finally pops” one can almost hear sounds akin to a child with bubble packing as the onedayyoullthankme team pops again, this time to the tune of the third member of Kate’s brood – a lovely little girl. She’s totally gorgeous (no I know, I know but actually she really is) and that can not be said about many newborns. Congratulations Kate, Captain Sensible, sensible junior and the lovely, newly relegated to middle princess (formerly but no longer known as the youngest). We hope she brings you much joy and doesn’t steal all your toys (the kids’ toys Captain, not yours. You should be sharing by now).
Wondering what to do about a gift? Apparently the newest addition to Kate’s family very much likes Chocolate and Pipers Brook Sparkling.
