No. 3 turned 10!!!

The baby is, I guess, not a baby anymore.  Which, I guess, means I had better stop calling that extra weight baby fat.  

Yes, the boy and joy turned ten on Wednesday.  The 10th of Summer as he used to call his birthday date when he was little.  Most years, he has been ill for his birthday, I don't know how it happens but he always is.  The most memorable ill birthday was this one, the one with the suppository.  

This year, he has a broken collar bone.  No. 2 pushed him and he fell landing on his shoulder and ... snap.  Three hours in hospital and then . . . well, at this moment in time, I think I've been awake since Monday.  It's now Friday! He is grand during the day but at night, that's where the fun starts.  He moves, a lot, in his sleep.  Everything he moves, the bone wriggles, he screams and I age another few hours.  I'm more grey now than ever.  Well, I was, I coloured my hair yesterday as I was a show.

Yeah, no. 2 pushed no. 3 and then convinced no. 3 to lie about how it all happened.  Apparently the, not very, christian Christian had shoved no. 3 and legged it.  This is the story we were told in the kitchen.  I was all set to leg it after him and rip his arms off when I thought it might be better to get an xray first.  I had just reversed the car and driven around the corner when no. 3, through the snot and tears, told me that it was actually no. 2 that had pushed him and he had gone along with the lie as no. 2 told him, no. 3, that I would give out to all and sundry if it was an in house shoving incident.
Hmmmm!!
You should have seen me reverse back around the corner.  Smooooth. Fit exactly into the space I had left three minutes earlier  No. 2 was playing on the street and, as I came down the road, backwards, you could see him just think 'fuck'.  I got out of the car, pointed to him and simply said 'IN.  NOW'.  Told Himself that the unchristian Christian hadn't pushed no. 3 but no. 2 had.  Gave the shover a bollocking about lying and gave the shovee a bollocking about lying and headed in to Temple Street.

So, his birthday.  He got a videogame (why are they still called that?) and a book I can't pronounce that you read from back to front and right to left?!  He also got to have his birthday tea in the garden.  Billy has a hatred of balloons and Stella is terrified of them.  Also, sad face, this is the last birthday that Fiona and Dilan will be here for.  This time next month they'll be living in Turkey and I'll be an sibling-less in Dublin.  That really is a crock of shite you know.  Smaller world, easier travel, blah, blah just means that everyone lives further away.

Anyway, his birthday, he had cake (bought lol), balloons, pizza and all of us.  Oh, and sunshine.  Gorgeous sunshine.  Perfect, huh?

Aaaaaaaaaargh

Arthur is finishing up in Infant School this year and it's terribly sad (terrible, terrible, terrible - Oscar) so he got to have his last big birthday party.  They each get three big ones (we didn't plan this, it just kind've happened that way) and this was his last one.

His first one with this gang was to the cinema and it was bloody mental.  We assumed every four/five year old regularly went to the cinema and took fourteen of Arthur's pals with us ... waaaaaaaaay back in the day.  I never brought a cake.  The kids were disgusted, even more disgusted when I explained that I don't do party bags.  "Huh? No bag??"  "s-s-sob .. . no bag?"  

NO.  I HATE PARTY BAGS!!!!!

Long story short, the kids were fucking mental and needed to pee every two sodding minutes and we swore never again.  That thought lasted  a year.  Last year it was Really Grand Events i.e. Mr. Paul Furey entertaining the kids and that was brilliant.  Would love the power to hold that many kids attention in the palm of my hand the way he does.  The fact that he is a magician probably helps!

So this year, the last party (terrible, terrible, terrible - Oscar) we had Kinsealy Pet Store come in, with various animals, to entertain the masses.  Thing was, they weren't going to be here until 4pm   They weren't going to be here until 4pm and I'd lost my voice.  Three cheers for Ms. K who helped me out with the many,  many boys and one girl on the green.  We played chasing, we allowed ourselves to be caught and we leaned on the bench drinking gin and tonics.  Happy days.

Brought kids into house, applied cream to ease nettle stings (nothing like telling young fellas, and one girl, to stay out of the bushes to make them go INTO the bushes and get stung.  Repeatedly) and fed them.  Then the lads arrived.  The wonderful Ciaran and Eric.  Yup, two lovely chaps and a van full of creatures.  We had chinchillas, rabbits, guinea pigs, a hedgehog, corn snakes (love) and a big boa constrictor.  We also had beardies and tortoises and every kid had something to have and hold and pet before getting bored and wandering off to find something else to have, hold and pet.

The kids had no fear, like, none whatsoever.  One or two were a bit wary but most had a blast.  I forgot to take a photo of the cake (would've looked great on our site, doh) but got a photo of every kid there holding the boa.  Including the ones of Arthur.  Cackle, don't you love the way, at the start, he looks happy enough but, towards the last shots, his little cheeks are being squeezed up into his hair.  Cackle. 

Oh, and the little shites were still giving out about the non appearance of party bags.

Ouch

 

Long snake or small family?

 

No way!!  I don't believe ssssshe sssssaid that

Cackle, the infamous Ms. K . .. now, start humming that song to 

yourself, you know the one, I'm a Slave 4 U, doesn't she look just like Brittany?

Bad Mammy? I knew it!!

No. 3 thought his mammy was hilarious!!  Not.

It was no. 3's birthday on Sunday and, like the other two, he gets one BIG birthday party at home before he leaves the Infant School.  This was his year.

What a pain in the hole (remember I said that by the way) it was to wake up at 9.30am without someone jumping up and down on our heads.  "Not like him to not be up here nicking our phones by this hour" we said to each other.  So I got up, I had stuff to make and all that jazz.  I passed by no. 2 and 3's bedroom and saw that the blinds were still pulled, no biggie here - sometimes they are pulled for 72 hours with the kids rising and retiring to bed in the half light.  We'd bought no. 3 a bike, who knew bikes were so expensive??, and I saw that it was still at the end of his bed.  I assumed he had gotten up and bailed downstairs to watch youtube videos of other people playing Sonic Games, yeah!  Seriously!!  But no, he was still in bed and he was w.a.s.t.e.d.

I called Himself and we tried to rouse him with a chorus of Happy Birthday to Yooooouuuuu.  That didn't work, he just kept muttering that he was tired.  Suddenly he leapt up and started babbling shite which is where we got a tad concerned and felt him.  He was roasting.  Our thermometer was used one too many times on Monkey so we've lost all the safety covers and it will only take ones temperature if the 'seal' things are on - you know?, they stop your ear wax going into someone else's ear.  Course you do!

Anyway, he was hot and I was bothered.  The magician was booked.  As were 15 kids.  Never mind the cake and the rice crispie cakes and the jellies etc.  I went downstairs to find our medicine box and discovered the Calpol was solid, put the bottle in a cup of boiling water and when the medicine became liquid I gave no.3 as much as I could squeeze out of the bottle.

Then I rang Mrs. C.  She was rushing off to Hot Yoga (she's being so wonderful I may have to lose her as a friend) and she advised Paralink Suppositories.  I vaguely remembered having them in the downstairs loo and legged it down and got one.  Thinking, as I rushed back upstairs, 'packaging is different'.  Eventually, and I do mean 'eventually' he let me insert the drug.  Jesus, it's awful.  Ugh.  Himself refused to have anything to do with it and said 'it was wrong'.  Lucky thing he doesn't live in France as that's the only way they take their medicine.

The child in question perked up, well you would, and he begged that we didn't cancel the party.

So I didn't.  
Ten minutes before the party was due to start he asked me to cancel it.

I went for the Paralink again.

Hmmm ...................... this time I looked at the packaging.

It wasn't Paralink.  It was something else.  I gave him the French People's medicine, our lovely neighbours are back, and vowed to mention my cock up to no one.

But you know me!  I had to mention it to someone so, when the party was nearly over, I sidled up to the lovely J and C and said 'I gave this to no. 3 thinking it was Paralink' whereupon J started cackling and C said  'It looks NOTHING like Paralink!!!'.

They googled it.

No. 3 need not worry about piles for a while.