When I grow up I want to be an astronaut, or a soldier, or a racing car driver, or a pirate, or a cow boy or a something really cool and fun.
What I don’t want to do is pass a plastic toy around wrapped in shiny paper and not win. I don’t want to eat crispy sandwiches without enough mayonnaise. I also don’t want to not be allowed to eat the cake until the end, and I certainly don’t want to have to run around the room trying to find a chair because a grown up keeps hiding one.
So why do we make our children do these stupid things at parties?
Have us adults forgotten our jobs, has our self obsessed life become so ridiculously introverted that we have forgotten what it is like to be a child so much that we now put on parties to impress our friends instead of to make kids have fun!
What sounds more fun…a my little pony themed fairy party or skate boarding round the park chasing someones cat with water pistols and nerf guns? Point proven, lets ditch the sh!t parties and let’s go back to proper child entertainment.
Long before this miserable lockdown Archie was lucky enough to go to the single greatest party of all time, and it has changed the way we will conduct parties from now on (If of course we are allowed to ever have them again…please God let them be banned forever). I was asked to drop him off at his friends house at 5pm, I was strictly not allowed into the house (no arguments from me, Dump and Run is still quite new, never looking back) in he trotted with a sleeping bag under his arm for a camping adventure party.
A what? A Camping Adventure Party. Thats it, need I say more. Proper Child Heaven.
No dressing up in plastic clothes, no forced fun games, no overly decorated cake, no exhausted mum, no dad looking bored trying to neck Gin and work out how to get out of Musical Statues and no children staring at the wall wishing they could go home to watch Paw Patrol…again – Just a tent in the garden and a load of his mates.
Virtually without interruption from a grown up they took themselves to the beach for a midnight (7pm) walk, they ate pizza and giggled about needing to go to the loo in the dark until 1am and then fell asleep on or near to sleeping bags for a few hours until the sun rose and they could play outside until breakfast time.
I don’t have any pictures of this incredible party, because I wasn’t there, but I am sure we can all imagine the fun they had. Archie has had his 6th birthday (Halloween trick or treat nightmare) so he has a long time to wait for his version of this, and I have until November to try and work out something perfectly geared towards the children not the parents, but gone are the days of stupid games no one likes…the future is bright, the future doesn’t have sh1t kids parties in it.
Disclaimer – I am not authorized to speak on behalf of Archie, Jack or Lexi on this subject. The opinions expressed are mine and mine alone….please keep inviting the nice side of my family to your little cherubs parties!!!
