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A very expensive fancy dress party indeed!

Our NCT group's party season is in full swing. By nature of our ante-natal group, they were all born around the same time four years ago and not a weekend goes by from January to March without a party in some hot, sweaty play area smelling of feet'n'farts. Or is that just the boys' parties?

We had our first girl's party last weekend, after the swimming lesson.I was reminded only the day before that the party was fancy dress, thanks to Elf's best friend O's mummy. I told her Ben would probably go as Buzz Lightyear. Excellent, she replied, because O is going as Woody and his younger sister as Jessie. We have limited fancy dress outfits, he's only just started to like dressing up. He was a pirate for his own party in January, and he were given the Buzz outfit for Christmas by his pal M. (When M's mum reads this, she may go mad.)


The party was 11-1pm. At 10am I started to look for his outfit. I was told by Other Half that he knew where it was. (We are not the most organised of parents, and this tale will not come as a surprise to those who know us.) So you can guess that ... no we couldn't find the outfit. I remembered coming back from our parents' houses with it at Christmas, that was all. We narrowed it down to either in the understair cupboard or on the ottoman by OH's side of the bed. Neither location bore fruit, but the dining room did bear a load of junk thrown out of the understair cupboard.

Cue panic. First tactic: "Elf, would you like to go as a pirate instead?" "Waaaaahhhhhhhh!" OK, I'll take that as a no.

Switch to second tactic: "Let's go to Toys R Us on the way to the party, we're bound to find a Buzz outfit there."

No we didn't. Well yes we did, but only in size Large which is 7-8 years. Elf is 4. There also do the outfit small and medium but not in stock, so surely the Large will be HUGE? I buy it, I decided, at the PRINCELY sum of £25. TWENTY FIVE POUNDS. It is a deluxe outfit,it's worth pointing out and here are the changes from the (we thought deluxe already) outfit he got for Christmas:

- the outfit is more padded
- there are gloves
- there are shoes.

So is it worth double the price?

Job done, but we dash in Sainsbury's just in case ... no Buzz outfits there.

Flash forward to the party car park - it's cold (5 degrees - amazing how we are all obsessed with the actual temperature since The Snow) and we are changing Elf into his outfit outside the car. Last resort, I thought, if the trousers are too big, he can just wear his grey ones he's got on. We put the Buzz top over the jumper he's got on, to add bulk. What? It's too small? Surely not, it's for 7-8 year olds! It actually fits over his vest. Typical. The trousers are slightly too long (but then the other suit's trousers are too long too) so we tuck them into his pants. The shoes look good, the gloves are slightly too long but he loves them. The hat fits perfectly and the wings, well they just stick on the back.

In all, he looks fab! When he meets up with Woody and Jessie, they scream at each other and run off to round up Sid next door. To justify spending that much, we can now use both outfits, the bigger outfit will grow with him and the smaller outfit can be used a lot more for play purposes, without worrying about ruining it.

To infinity and beyond!

The party was brilliant with parachute games, a magician, musical statues, drawings that could be laminated to take home (for some reason it was the girls who did these, the boys were chasing balloons) and fab party food. Happy Birthday E!

Lessons to be learned from this:
1. Always store fancy dress clothes in a safe place, preferably together.
2. Always remember if a party is fancy dress. (Mark the calendar entry FD after the time!)
3. Never leave locating the fancy dress until an hour before the party.

Comments

  1. Forget work start writing and publishing xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Totally agree with prevoius comment!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sandybeach - I would love to write, but it's very hard to judge the standard of your own writing - the blog is a way of testing the water. I shall look at yours later when I'm at home x

    ReplyDelete

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