L has a new Bilibo, which is good for spinning around in and doing all sorts of other fun things with. It is of course pink, and is a nice accessory to one of her dresses – see Flickr. Katy and I have both read the last Harry Potter book and so no longer have to live with the shame of having not read it. We were going to wait till it came out in paperback, but someone who’d finished her copy of the hardback gave us her copy as, unlike us, she isn’t a hoarder. It wasn’t the best book I’d ever read, but worth the effort.
This weekend was Monster’s birthday darn sarf (even relative to us) – there’s not much sarfer than the MonsterTeenies though. Despite an acute lack of sleep all round and hence bouts of raging grumpiness on Sunday it was a very nice trip away. Thanks to Nic and Ady for their hospitality and amazing party preparations, Monster for giving us his bedroom for the night, Babs for the loan of cash for chips (we still owe you), T-Bird for lovely flapjack and everyone else for nice company.
Flickr should give you a better idea of the fab Doctor Who cakes and biscuits, life-size papier-mâché Dalek, the kind donation of so much paper and colour printer ink from Ady’s work, children running about like loons enjoying themselves, amazing face painting and general nice time had by all. Monster looked dashing and grown-up as Doctor Who.
After the party we retired to Nic and Ady’s with most of the other guests. More children and adults than most people would consider feasible squashed into their front room and ate X + chips, unexpectedly successfully given how many small people there were around and the large potential for wine / ketchup / vinegar related accidents or squabbles over unfair distribution of fried food. When the boys were supposedly sleeping up in Monster’s room, L came and cuddled me on the sofa and we both fell asleep. After a bit I woke up, took her upstairs and fetched our grown-up sleeping bags from the car without waking up too much, so that I could go to bed too. I left Katy and A downstairs with the rest of the adults, who eventually came to bed really rather late indeed.
On the way down we popped in to see some of A’s godparents (like the others, she has two sets) for a too brief but much needed cup of tea / feed / play on the computer / play with Barbies. On the way back J’s wobbly tooth finally came out and we stopped for a late lunch at Ikea. (Lateness partly due to me forgetting a bag of stuff and so having to return to Nic and Ady’s 
) This turned into shopping and by the time we got to the queue to pay it was gone 4 o’clock. I waited in the queue for at least half an hour with very tired but still just about acceptably behaved children, and by the time we were through the check out and organising things ready for carting to the car they closed the bits beyond the check outs that sell ice-cream and boxes of biscuits. This caused fairly universal sense of humour failure – it was actually a couple of minutes before 5 o’clock (Sunday closing time). The people still in the queues would be handing over their money at the tills after 5 o’clock by the time they got to them, so it was weird that we couldn’t do the same in the food bit. Grrrr… Grumpy email will be sent.
. One advantage of the new house is enough space to have people to stay without it being a major hassle, particularly such lovely company who bring such yummy chocolate brownies. A week of extended playing happened, which was great for everyone.
We did the full grown-up evening and tried the local Chinese takeaway for the first time, which makes very tasty and interesting stuff indeed (tempura veg 
) muttering “I think there are wild animals on the landing!” all the while about 90% asleep and then L, disturbed by all this action and by coughing fits, standing up, tripping over J and throwing herself onto the bed so that she could scrabble up and demand “Mummy milk!” in a hoarse but nonetheless loud voice! Ah, the joys of motherhood – and why on earth did I let Bob sleep near the wall, leaving me next to the children?