Party Hard

On Thursday, Master20 clocked over another year and Miss17 did likewise so Saturday night was the culmination of 21 years work as we had their combined birthday parties. Therefore from here on in I need to be referring to my two eldest as Master21 and Miss18. Where the hell does the time go? I'm barely out of my twenties myself. 21 years since the big man turned my simple life upside down? 18 years since my beautiful girl melted my heart? More like 10. Eleven at a pinch.

The party was fantastic. As the date drew closer I've been increasingly worried about gatecrashers and troublemakers but the event went off almost incident free. Almost.

Some of you may have noticed I've clocked up a few days absence from my blog. This is because I've been extremely busy, as in drunk (or at least very happy - the days of spinning rooms, missed lectures and the need for buckets are, thankfully, well behind me). I've been drinking because we've been lucky enough to host all the families' Christmas functions at our place this weekend, which is a lot of work but also saves on the 'who's going to be the designated driver?' discussion between me and Tracey.

This has been my life for the last four days:

Thursday - Master20's and Miss17's birthdays
Friday - Devereaux family Xmas party
Saturday - Master21's & Miss18's combined birthday party
Sunday - Lawrence family Xmas party

And the next few days aren't looking so relaxing either:

Monday - Xmas Eve
Tuesday - Christmas
Wednesday - Miss2's third birthday

Who the hell put Christmas in the middle of all my kids' birthdays?

December has already given us birthdays for Tracey, my brother and my big lug of a nephew.

We've been looking forward to this combined birthday party since the day Miss18 was born on her big brother's birthday and we realized their 18th and 21st would combine. Well, looking forward to it and dreading it. I, like the majority of sensible people in this world, don't like public speaking. Having a couple of decades to prepare didn't help me either. In fact, the only thing I'd managed to do, from the moment I realized I'd have to give a speech at the damn thing, had been to panic. Did I think to write any notes? No, of course not. I opted to wing it. You can imagine how well that went.

As I stood in front of a sizable crowd of about 100 people, it suddenly occurred to me I had nothing. For years I've been thinking of little lines I intended to say, like, "I feel very lucky in that I not only love my two oldest children, I actually like them." Nice, eh? What about anecdotes?  I've got dozens and then some. Any come to me on the night? Not one.

Well that's not entirely true, there was one. But I thought recounting about how Tracey walked into Master21's room one night when he was about 17 and thought she'd sprung him playing with himself would be a little inappropriate.

Of course, speeches are over so I've no compunction about telling the tale now :) Upon seeing Master20 quickly reef the blanket up to his chest, Tracey beat a hasty retreat, a little embarrassed for our young man. Master21 recently told us he overheard Tracey telling me about the incident the next morning.

"I'm so sorry," said Tracey. "You must have been so embarrassed."

"No," he said. "I was actually relieved. I remember thinking, 'Tracey thinks I was masturbating. Thank god.'"

Turns out he wasn't playing with himself at all. What he'd actually done was sneak a girl, who is still his girlfriend (and I hope her mother doesn't read my blog), into his room and she was 'hiding' under the blanket.

I know what you're thinking, is this the story we put on my Father Of The Year application, or do you use the one where Master7 wins awards all year at school and I have no idea until a customer at work tells me about it?

I chose not to tell this story, which I feel deserves a fair amount of praise. Okay, given I didn't know he had a girl in his room maybe we can just call it even-stevens on the praise front.

So in my rather short and meandering speech I told Master21 & Miss18 I love them, I thanked people (family, our friends, the kids' friends) for helping us mold them into who they are and I dished out the cake. Mission accomplished. I guess we're lucky in this family in that we tell each other all the time how much we love each other so we don't need special events to make this known. Having said that, Master21's speech had Tracey sobbing and blubbering - he could talk the hind legs off a donkey, that boy. Even my beautiful Miss18 said some lovely words, and she'd rather wear pink than talk in front of a crowd.

The night itself was great. We booked the local Junior Rugby League clubhouse, surrounded it with people, food and a band, erected a huge jumping castle outside, a pool table inside and had us some fun. Most of us anyway. There was this one guy who might have a bone to pick with the way the evening turned out.

This guy, let's call him Michael, hasn't been to our home before because he's one of Master21's uni mates. Halfway through the evening he decided to start up an unfortunate conversation with Miss5 on how tough she is. She explained how she could beat up her big brothers, or her dad, or anyone because she's watched Karate Kid or some such. He then tried to tell her she couldn't beat him because he's so much tougher than her. He shouldn't have called her out. Anyone who's spent any time with Miss5 knows this. She punched him with all her might straight in the nose.

So an almost incident free party and a lot of fun.

Three more days of excitement and gluttony and then the fun begins - I'm back at work. It's been a nice, busy break.

Oh, and sorry Michael. I hope they set it nice and straight.

Merry Christmas, everyone! You all have a wonderful time with your partners, kids, friends and/or family. Behave or I'll sic my five year old daughter on you.

Stay safe and I hope the big guy has you on his good list :) x

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