kids' parties Archives - Circles in the SandCircles in the Sand

It was LB’s fourth birthday yesterday! How that went so fast, I don’t know. It honestly feels like just the other day that I was heavily pregnant in the UK and had to text my husband in Dubai at 5 in the afternoon to say:

“Can you get to London by 8am? Ghengis [yes, that was his working title!] needs to be born in the morning.”

Amazingly, DH made it! Just!

Last year, we had a very small party at home and, because BB’s birthday is the next month, we did a family day-out to Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi.

The perfect birthday outing for car-mad small boys. Surely?

“I can juggle or bend balloons – for a small fee”

They STILL haven’t forgiven me!

What they really wanted was a big playarea party – each – with all their friends, presents, cake, games, entertainment, a party host bellowing into a microphone, balloons and chaos. The kind of event that causes mummy to lose sleep and requires daddy to sell a kidney to pay for it.

So this week I’ve been busy organising LB’s out-sourced party – it won’t be anything lavish, and certainly nowhere near the scale of a birthday his brother attended earlier this year at the Atlantis hotel, with valet parking, the aquarium and Apple Mac computer room at guests’ disposal.

But, even so, it seems the tab for throwing a children’s party these days is always going to be more than you bargained for.

So far:

– Use of playarea for 2 hours CHECK

– Party host CHECK

– Kid’s meal for 20-plus children CHECK

– Cake (with Titanic picture) CHECK

– Party bags CHECK

– Catering for adult guests (so they’re not sent home needing to lie down in a darkened room and/or apply wine) CHECK

– Balloons (blue and silver) CHECK

But, wait, there’s more. You can fork out extra for a theme, or a magician. Provide a helium balloon for each child to take home. Book a sideshow, such as face painting. Or pick a couple of games for the children to play, charged per head.

And, the trouble is – such is the money-grabbing nature of the party industry – you can never be quite sure what you’ll actually get for all this expense.

“Could we have musical chairs please,” I decided when going over the details this week.

“And what’s this?” I asked, pointing at the Wrap the Mummy option, there in black-and-white on the booking form.

“Wrap the Mummy? Hmmm. I don’t actually know – we got it off the Internet,” was the reply.

“But would you like a 250 dirham piñata?”

In my 20s, I had no clue it was possible to finish the weekend so tired! I might have thought I did – what with all those lie-ins, long lunches and pub trips. On Sunday night, as I flopped onto my cream sofa in my single-girl London flat with a take-away and a pile of magazines, I thought I was exhausted.

I was wrong. Oh, how little I knew then!

Fast forward a decade, and my weekends look nothing like they used to.

The little people in my life call the shots. But my tiredness tonight – a happy tiredness I’m glad to say – could also have something to do with the fact that we spent much of the weekend swimming.

I’m also grateful that we’ve moved on from our early days in Dubai, when BB was terrified of water and would rather roast round the edge

The highlight was a pool party – very popular here for obvious reasons. There’s a certain amount of trauma involved, ie, running after two overexcited boys in a bikini – swimming boobs jiggling – in front of at least 20 of the mums and dads from BB’s class. But, pool parties are great fun, especially when they’re catered by a company called Splash ‘n’ Bounce.

A pirate ship bouncy castle had been installed by the pool, with a slide into the water, and inflatables such as a Wild Rocker (which lived up to its name), 4-seater dinghy and kind-looking killer whale were provided to keep the kids amused. Amused is an under-statement. The kids went crazy.

Imagine a water-based episode of the comedy game show ‘It’s a Knockout’ for under 6s and you’ll be thinking along the right lines – the pool wafted by lush palm trees and the mums wearing an array of flatteringly cut swimwear and slipping into pretty, linen dresses in all the colours of the rainbow as the sun went down.

So, whilst I might only have enough energy left tonight to wash the chlorine from my hair, and my fingers started resembling raisins this weekend, I’m feeling pretty lucky that we have such great pools here in Dubai – along with the sunshine to use them (until it gets too hot and they actually have to chill the water!).