Smythe's Blog

Party, Party, Party.. but not mine!

A weekend full of parties, Went to one on Saturday and another on Sunday. Only problem they were birthday parties my 3 yr old son was invited too! So two days of young kids runnning around with out any sign of exhaustion, eating loads of unhealthy food and getting away with it cos it's a party.
Always worries me how many parents arrive at these things and say, 'see you at 3'. Leaving no contact no. and just giving little Jonnie or Jessica a peck on the cheek. The child looks on forlornly for a few moments as mum and dad skip merrily out the door discussing what to do with this stolen few hours. Of course little Jonnie or Jessia are soon running around and playing completely unconcerned.
Because the usual venue for the parties we go to are in a secure area on a military base I have never really thought about it and my wife and I always stay just in case anyway. Sunday's Party was at a public place where there were about another 5 or 6 parties going on. This meant about 60 kids rather than the usual about 10 and lots of adults we neither knew nor had met before. Yet the majority of parents seemed happy to let their children stay in the care of someone they only see in passing when they drop their children at Nursery and know nothing about.
Don't get me wrong the venue was set up for this purpose and had better security on it than most child play facilities, you know those Pubs with a kids play pen etc.. But it was still public in an area with less control than we would normally have at our usual party venue.
Oh well.. maybe I'm just being a little paranoid. The boy had a cracking time on the climbing frames and slides playing with his friends and I even got to re-live a few memories drinking Slush Puppys. Sure the cup size has shrunk though :-).

posted by Smythe @ 1:43 pm