The one thing no parenting book prepares you for is children's parties.
Family for tea and cake for his first birthday and, "Oh good heavens no party, he'll never even remember" for his second. At this stage we had not been to another child's party.
When he turned three we had. Or should I say I had, my husband would rather saw his arm off with a plastic spoon.
There are degrees of insanity at these parties, but I was in no doubt I had witnessed the full insanity thereof. For his third birthday his two besties came with their construction vehicles; we let them loose in what would become my veggie garden.
The next year I saw it all again. Parties that must take the moms weeks to prepare, the long, low table and little chairs. Each child's place has a beautifully made (I still have them, they're too perfect to throw away) goodie bag with the latest favourite TV show characters perfectly reproduced and stuffed, to my eternal horror, with sugar in equally well-crafted likenesses. And the cakes, good heavens, the cakes ...
Then there're the moms, encouraged to accompany their child who at least provide me with material for my blogs. It's all so perfect until the kids arrive; within five minutes it looks like a crime scene.
So when our son's fourth birthday came around I knew what I didn't want. No Disney theme, no low-slung table, no rot-your-teeth-just-looking-at-it goodie bag and NO MOMS.
The thought of entertaining them at home was also a non-starter so we took to the mountains; that is after all why we moved here. Since we live in one of the oldest gold mining towns in the country the mountains are pocked with old tunnels and excavation shafts.
The invite Specified old clothe,a headlight and no moms.My friends thought I was mad, taking what started out as six kids but ended up closer to 12 into the mountains on our own. I said, "Bye."
I have a commanding voice and before we left a few short, sharp instructions were issued to a group of seated, super excited kids.
Rule 1: The Jack Russell goes first, she will take care of anything untoward on the path or at least notify us thereof.
Rule 2: Any fighting, you get taken home.
Rule 3: We all have legs and we're all going to use them, no 'uppie'.
Rule 4: No pushing and shoving in the shaft, walk don't run and help each other.
Then we crammed into cars and headed for the creek.
Early that morning we'd nipped out to mark a not-insignificant trail to the old shaft with balloons.
Those kids ate up that trail, they ran from balloon to balloon. They shouted, they whooped, they tripped they fell, they shed not a tear. When they got to a steep, rocky part of the trail I knew some may need help and was prepared to offer piggy-backs, but no, if my mates can do it, so can I and up they scrambled, some on all fours.
It was as if they could smell the gold, it was so obviously one of the most exhilarating things they'd ever done that every moment was priceless and because our son knew the trail it was his 'show'.
We had of course also prepared the shaft with gold.
And to their enduring pleasure they found gold and stuffed their 'prospecting' bags so full they couldn't carry it all. On their own they would notice someone who didn't have any and shared unprompted.
They stumbled back into the light for juice and half a cupcake and then went straight back in.
We walked back to the cars with heads filled with magic and gold, tired legs and a party still talked about.
They were incredible, not once did I need to raise my voice or use my super stare; their energy had been allowed to follow unrestrained, their imaginations unencumbered ...
... and we had as much fun as they did.
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