A DAD'S LIFE:THE SEVENTH birthday party might be the best one. That's not something to consider when it's your own birthday as going downhill for the following 70 years might seem daunting, but it's obvious from a parent's perspective.
Birthdays let you down. You spend the first 21 dying to be older, then expect the brakes to grab, just for you, at 22. If only, I’d never have to suffer another mind-numbing beauty product ad.
The very first one is for your folks to get messy and attempt to remind themselves of life before you. A couple more slip by with you barely conscious. For a few years the party itself becomes all-consuming until around 12 or 13, it’s damn uncool. Teen years are spent learning how to celebrate, Irish style, and getting progressively more wasted away from the prying, interfering eyes of your loser parents. Adulthood is about honing that art to forget the years slipping away.
There, that’s my depressant’s guide to birthdays in a nutshell. Forty is coming thundering over the hill, hence the misery.
But at seven, the forces of the universe align and expectation and reality can be balanced. Maybe for the last time.
Excitement had been building in the younger for six weeks. She isn’t the most demonstrative child so this was shown by constant update requests on the time to her birthday, in weeks, days, hours and minutes. Requests were manageable, no outlandish presents demanded, no lion tamers for entertainment. All she wanted was her classmates to come, and be on time. Being on time was very important.
That was it: a crowd, balloons, cake. And a bike. Even the bike was requested nearly as an afterthought, as if it might be an imposition. She offered up her savings for half of it, and considering she’d been scratching round on her sister’s rusty cast off for a couple of years, we would have been willing to fork out for carbon fibre frames and pro-team settings.
She came at us with the least demanding set of requirements she could have. Used, as we are, to the other one attempting to bribe us annually for a pony, we had a bout of the guilts that she didn’t want more so we could do our usual and shoot down her hopes.
Presents and cake sorted, we braced for the arrival of hordes of small girls. Again, seven makes all the difference. Before seven, you can be guaranteed that for the three-hour duration of any party, in any gathering of more than four girls, someone will be crying at all times. Four, five and six, they cry a lot. Someone will have scraped a knee, swallowed a toy, gorged on sausages and spewed on your laptop. There will be a relay of sobs, each guest taking a minimum five-minute slot to present themselves, miserable, and recount their tale of woe.
Until seven, a party requires mop bucket, Band Aids and antiseptic at the ready, and an ability to maintain sympathy for each dramatic event to befall the stricken children.
None of that this year. At seven they are self-starting and self-finishing. They get stuck in to everything you provide or suggest without needing to collapse regularly on the floor and wail at the unfairness of the world. After seven this tendency returns with the arrival of more self-awareness and the stirrings of the urge to be a little above it all, a little beyond musical chairs and pass the parcel.
This crowd played all the games, ate what they were given, said thanks, and ran wild without damaging themselves or each other.
For this one perfect moment, the parents present are not seen as having to provide all the entertainment and are also welcome distractions as opposed to embarrassing intrusions. The most requested game of the afternoon was a pile-on on the biggest person in the room. I figured quickly 15 children swarming on me like Gulliver was a recipe for disaster. Instead I sent them outside to play with fire and power tools. Much safer.
And to top it all, at seven, they don’t have the sugar rush meltdown on leaving as in previous years. Their parents, well versed in party etiquette, arrive, collect and disappear, without tears. Candles are blown, wishes made, party bags distributed, the thing is over and you’re left with one, shattered, happy child.
Perfect seven.