Sur­viv­ing Birthday

Emo­tion? Did I say Avery’s birth­day par­ty would be filled with emo­tion?? HA! Try frost­ing on the floor, vagabond mari­bou feath­ers under all the fur­ni­ture, jel­ly beans and gar­den dirt crushed into the car­pet, about 3,000 presents strewn about the liv­ing room. And that was after they LEFT. It was an invad­ing army, and it had weapons. 21 foot sol­diers armed with cos­tumes that bled beads and sequins, make­up that left its trail­ing fin­gers all over every flat sur­face, an eat­ing method that involved pro­jec­tile motion, and that was when they agreed to eat. Then there was the rene­gade sec­tion of the army who reject­ed on any pos­si­ble prin­ci­ple any­thing that was offered to eat. “Don’t you remem­ber, Mrs Cur­ran, I don’t like apple juice?” “I don’t eat the kind of piz­za that had red stuff on it.” Then when it turned out to be piz­za with­out toma­to sauce, there popped up “I don’t eat cheese.” “Could­n’t you make some pas­ta, with just but­ter on it?” “I don’t eat but­ter, except on popcorn.”

So I was saved from an embar­rass­ing flood of tears, or even a momen­t’s feel­ing of affec­tion for my child, or nos­tal­gia, by an over­whelm­ing desire to get them out of my house. But not until we wad­ed through the end­less festivities.

It all start­ed at school, where an arcane game was played called “who is rid­ing with whom.” Next time (there will nev­er be a next time, is my mantra) I don’t care how much it costs, I’m hir­ing a Lon­don dou­ble-deck­er bus if I have to and print­ing the fact on the birth­day par­ty invi­ta­tions, so as to avoid the mind-bend­ing com­pli­ca­tions of get­ting these chil­dren packed into vehi­cles and to the par­ty. Not to men­tion the poor moth­ers who all had to drop what­ev­er they were doing and gath­er up their own chil­dren plus three or four oth­ers who weren’t sure if their moth­ers or nan­nies or dri­vers or but­lers were com­ing to pick them up or not. My saint­ly friends Becky and Susan all put hands on deck and joined up with John in Emmy (the only par­tic­i­pant who looked like he was hav­ing fun) and got them all to the house. I myself packed up two chil­dren and we were off. Once home, we wad­ed through the pas­sage­way filled with (per child) back­packs, gym bags and cos­tume bags, and start­ed get­ting every­one into fin­ery and with prop­er make­up on. Then we herd­ed them to the din­ing room table where I had laid out stick­ers, mark­ers, lit­tle sil­ver stars and glue sticks, for their white paper treat bags. That was trou­ble-free and they enjoyed per­son­al­iz­ing their bags, ready for can­dy. Which I had strewn around the gar­den and giv­en to the one neigh­bor out there who agreed to be avail­able, plus upstairs at our neigh­bor Andrew’s house. With­in sec­onds they had plun­dered the lot, and rushed indoors again for the piz­za which… did­n’t mate­ri­al­ize because the shop did­n’t answer its phone. John went man­ful­ly out into the dark to bring it home, and then ensued the food queries and objec­tions. Clos­et­ed with moth­er friends in the kitchen, we debat­ed if lit­tle-girl-par­ty rules allowed for the judi­cious stran­gling of one or two guests? Just a cou­ple. No? OK, then, onward to the movie, “It’s the Great Pump­kin, Char­lie Brown,” which unfor­tu­nate­ly dis­lodged Keechie from both the chair she had hid­den under AND her pre­car­i­ous Val­i­um-induced calm, and she skid­ded first upstairs, and then encoun­ter­ing more girls com­ing down, raced down­stairs again, to be trapped in the guest room where she peed on the com­forter. Ah well, the price one pays for birth­day mayhem.

The movie last­ed the pre­cise 21 min­utes it took to remove bag-dec­o­rat­ing detri­tus from the table and replace it with plates and forks and nap­kins, and they trooped upstairs and sat down for can­dle light­ing and singing. The cake was a rev­e­la­tion, appar­ent­ly! Lemon cream with choco­late cake and white choco­late icing. Even the par­ents who began to arrive scarfed it down. Final­ly the three or so lit­tle girls who were left bat­ted around the black and orange bal­loons John had blown up, danc­ing and pranc­ing around the room sur­round­ed by wrap­ping paper, piles of plates con­tain­ing the crumbs of cake, for­got­ten bits of cos­tume. “Yes, it’s prov­ing the adage that the cheap­est thing, the thing you put the least effort into at a child’s par­ty, is the thing she will enjoy the most,” I said with cha­grin, remem­ber the 50-pence bags of duck food on our Cotswolds week­end.

Final­ly every­one had gone. I brushed my teeth and washed my face and imme­di­ate­ly felt like a new woman, which was fur­ther helped by a love­ly Abso­lut Cit­ron on ice with a slice of lemon. Then the presents were unwrapped, such a booty! Syl­va­ni­ans like you would­n’t believe, from my sis­ter and broth­er-in-law and Baby Jane, and Amer­i­can Girl boun­ty from John’s par­ents, and beau­ti­ful hats, scarves, board games, more Syl­va­ni­ans from school chums. Final­ly the three of us col­lapsed at the kitchen table with baked ham and scal­loped pota­toes, the per­fect post-par­ty com­fort din­ner. It’s offi­cial: Avery is ten.

Scal­loped Potatoes
(serves six, or three tonight and three for leftovers)

6 medi­um pota­toes, peeled and thin­ly sliced
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 cup sin­gle cream (or half and half mixed with heavy cream)
1 cup whole milk
4 tbsps butter
salt and pepper

Mix the creams and milk in a cup with a spout. Then, all impor­tant, spray a 9x9 dish with Pam. It will make cleanup a breeze instead of a mis­er­able night­mare, it’s just that sim­ple. Lay­er about half of the pota­to slices in the pan and pour over about half of the creamy liq­uid. Scat­ter the minced gar­lic over and gen­er­ous­ly salt and pep­per. Then lay­er the remain­ing pota­toes and pour over the remain­ing creamy liq­uid, salt and pep­per again and dot with but­ter. Cov­er with plas­tic wrap, lay­ing it right on the sur­face of the creamy pota­toes so as to keep them from brown­ing, if you plan to leave it in the fridge while you try to sur­vive your daugh­ter’s birth­day par­ty. Pre­heat your oven to 400 degrees and bake pota­toes for an hour, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly. This will put some starch back into your spine.