Skip to main content

Sugar rush!


OMG what was I thinking allowing Izzy to talk me into hosting a disco for 25 10 and 11 year olds without any back up?!?! Utter madness! This all started fairly simply with "I don't want any fuss, just music and lights and my friends...." and ended up with requests such as "Can I have a red carpet?" on Thursday morning having already bought balloons, room decorations, food etc etc and hired lights suitable for the hall we'd had to hire as the normal one was already booked out. I was still relatively calm about it until Saturday afternoon when Abi seemed to have disappeared, we hadn't fed Izzy and I was clearly going to have to do all the set up pretty much on my own. Glenn was doing man things (in charge of setting the lights up) while I was single handed blowing up 60 odd balloons and putting down the essential red carpet. It's amazing what you can get in 24 hours armed only with the internet and a debit card.


The appointed hour arrive and bang on cue kids started arriving and almost immediately parents started leaving with comments such as "Lovely idea, just what they need to reconnect after the holidays" and (more commonly) "Rather you than me, see you in 2 hours!" What had I let myself in for?


Despite me asking parents to feed their kids before arriving, apparently they were all starving as the many packets of popcorn and crisps immediately started to disappear, with the sweet bowl pretty much being inhaled within 5 minutes. Add to this a fruit shoot or 2 each and by 6:36pm (ye, only 36 mins into a 120 min party) I was the only adult in a room of 25 sugar crazed children - eekkkkk. I watched as the boys roared around shouting and tussling on the floor, bursting every balloon they could find, while the girls drew on each other with neon pens with increasingly high pitched squeals. I resisted the urge to hide in the kitchen until it was all over.


Thank goodness for friends. At 6:45 Yesim turned up and took one look at them all and started to try and get them into some order and dancing (it was after all supposed to be a disco). She has a son as well as a daughter so is more attuned to how to get a gang of rabid 10 year old boys to calm down - for a short while it looked a little less like Lord of the Flies, but only momentarily, In the end we just left them to it. At one point the headmaster's son (normally pretty mild mannered) raced up to me and shouted "This is mad but BRILLIANT!!!!" and raced off again. They were having fun even if I was not.


At 8pm on the dot we switched off the music, switched on the lights and surveyed the carnage. Bunting, balloons a decorations all gone. Squashed popcorn everywhere but no broken children and lots of happy faces. Parents started to arrive and everyone commented on how brilliant it had been - for them anyway. We cleared up, I thanked Yesim profusely and went home for a very large glass of wine. NEVER AGAIN.


Thank goodness today was a bit calmer and in between texts from parents saying how much their darling offspring had enjoyed themselves, we pottered around, safe in the knowledge that it's someone else's turn next time! Other things probably happened this week as well, but I can't remember - the trauma of yesterday has wiped my memory clean!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome Albert James!

So this week has been full of new things - Jess and Chris have welcomed Albert James Wilkinson Rayner to the family, a tad early but all doing well apparently (and so cute!!), I started my new job, Abi has her new shed and Dad got sorted on a phone that wasn't invented before the kids were born!! I always knew this week was going to be full on and it certainly has been. The first thing I had to do was try and sort out my diary which had been filled from dawn to dusk by my predecessor with meetings. I decided to set out as I mean to go on and immediately took out those that started before 9am. While I can get into  the office for 8am , it's a pain and requires me to be on the 6:30am train which is just a bit much every day (stating the obvious). I then made it clear that we don't need to be joined at the hip for the next 4 weeks which is a sensitive process - even though he is retiring it's hard to let go and he is understandably keen that the team are looked after. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Diary management!

This part of the summer is definitely typified by me trying to remember who is supposed to be where and when. Abi likes to be off doing something with someone while Izzy is happier to know she's close to home and so for the last week they've gone their separate ways. Abi has been down in Somerset making the most of Ben and Laurie being about. From what I can tell she's having a lovely time. Apart from the covert phone call one evening to tell me she was 'starving'  (Mum was cooking for the hordes and so it had been delayed), I've barely heard from her. The few calls I have had have very quickly ended in "can I go now" like I'm making her speak to me! Today she switches from Mum and Dads to a night or two with Kerrie - not sure who is more excited! Izzy didn't want to be away for that long so she opted not to go. She's very conscious that Abi and Laurie are joined at the hip when together and Ben has his own things he wants to do so she ...
Post a Comment
Read more

All about Izzy

This weekend has mainly been about Izzy, mostly because Abi has been off riding again and so we've hardly seen her. This has its pros and cons - on the one hand Izzy gets lots of attention and the choice of what to do. On the other she misses Abi and when big sister arrives home we have the inevitable few hours of resettling which seems to involve tears as a matter of course. I did have a moment of despair this evening when I looked across to the table just before Sunday dinner - normally a happy time - to see both of them, heads on arms, holding back tears. Luckily a bit of food and a game of 20 questions to share what everybody had enjoyed about their weekend and we kind of managed to get back on track by dessert. When asked what she wanted to do, Izzy immediately shouted "Jo Jo" so my task was to sort out a visit with Jo, the boys and Ellie. No matter how much time passes they still love to see each other and the first task is always the same. Edward and Izzy have t...
Post a Comment
Read more