Princess Party Hell

Actually I’m being dramatic (she says dramatically) as The Girl’s party wasn’t hellish, although it was tooth rottingly, bone achingly Princessy. And although I’ve read that the real hell can be other parents, who ignore the bit on the invitation that reads: Parents Fuck Off, and sidle their way in, so you have to get them drunk too, they all seemed happy to drop their children on us and run.

So it kicked off with The Girl already being hopelessly excited by 5am (the party began at 2pm) and The Husband enquiring if it were possible to get Valium to put in her milk. Anything to stop her rushing round the living room bursting balloons and giving heart attacks to the cats. I finally got up and took her out for a walk, while he made piles of sandwiches. I discovered we might need extra bowls for the pudding. We had to get plastic bowls for the multicoloured fruit jelly I’d made. You actually worry about these things when you plan children’s parties. The Girl and I then trotted off to the party shop. Do you know that those poxy branded throwaway bowls that probably cost 0.2p to make cost 3.50 EACH when you have a Disney Princess on the front? Luckily The Girl was too busy having a tantrum trying to get me to buy Disney Princess napkins at £5 a bunch to notice.

Home again to find Husband had cut up lots of carrots and cucumbers in the hope of providing one thing on the tea table that wouldn’t immediately cause Type 2 Diabetes. I worried about whether I'd put decent presents in between the layers of the parcel, in Pass the Parcel. It's not Done to just let the children fight and sulk while they unwrap; you have to provide in-between presents now! A phone call to a veteran parent on emergency games only resulted in the advice: "Send them out to the park and give £10 to the child who comes back last." Great. Almost as good as his adult party game. "Two people each drink a whole bottle of whisky, then one of them goes outside and knocks on the door. The other person has to guess who it is." Anyway 1.30 arrived and our Professional Princess showed up, with a music system. The poor woman was barely in the door before The Girl, pink with hysteria started bombarding her with questions. But Tara (her real name) was brilliant, keeping 14 little girls wrapped up in the Princess fantasy -complete with jug eared Prince, numerous affairs, and high speed death in a Parisian tunnel - yes yes I'm kidding. It was all Disney Princess Lore, far healthier as role models. All The Husband had to do was take pictures. There was one bad moment when a little girl arrived and started to cry. “I want to go home!” And the mother just managed to get her foot over the door before I picked up the girl and said in my best bossy PE teacher voice: “She’ll be fine!” and lugged the wailing child into the living room where I plied her with sweets and cuddles.

There was a fair bit of nose picking and knicker showing but no vomiting or pooing and thanks to Tara, they all had a fantastic time. At one point, remembering primary school and weeing myself because I was too shy to ask to go to the loo, I shouted the location of our bathroom above the din, which prompted a Mass Girly Toilet Visit. Fourteen little girls thundered up the stairs at once. The Husband started worrying about taking pictures of little girls. I told him to get rid of the one of the sweet little blonde girl showing her knickers and grinning broadly. It’s a shame the things we have to worry about these days. She obviously had a great time. As did The Girl. Which was the main thing. As Frances Hodgson Burnett says in 'A Little Princess' - "All little girls are Princesses!" They are. Happy birthday my little Princess.