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What do you dream of doing on your birthday? Is it waking up to a soggy half-bowl of Cheerios and having coffee spilled over your bedsheets at 6am? It is, isn’t it? Knew it.
Okay, so it might not be entirely the way I dreamed of turning 39, but I found my initial resentment at not getting a proper lie-in eased substantially by the beaming faces of my two young children, whose dastardly plan it was to, “Wake Mummy up with breakfast in bed!”
And when I was dragged downstairs – all of 11 minutes after hurriedly choking down my luxurious breakfast, I found the door to the living room barred shut and a sign on it which read, “Party Time – 39 Today!”
This was the idea, you see: to let my kids plan out my birthday, start to finish. Because in lockdown, frankly, I wasn’t going to be doing anything else. And it gave them such pleasure to have ‘grown-up responsibility’ that I couldn’t resist. I was also very curious to see what they’d come up with – what they figured out, independently, I’d enjoy.
Anyway, it went a bit like this…
When I opened the door to ‘the party zone’ (the living room), Spotify was blaring out Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday’ song – courtesy of Google Home, who my children (aged three and eight) seem to have wrapped around their little fingers.
They know how to stealthily add things (sweets, chocolate, ingredients for slime) to the shopping list, how to check the weather, and how to entice our automated helper to give them the answers to Year 3 English homework, such as, “What is a fronted adverbial?” (A good job, too; for I haven’t a clue).
In preparation for my big day, my kids had been hard at work. In fact, my daughter confessed she’d woken up at 5am and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep – because she was “too excited”.
On the table, I found presents and balloons and a birthday banner. Once I’d opened all my cards, my kids dragged up little stools and carefully arranged them for me on the mantlepiece.
We couldn’t do much in a regular day during lockdown – what with homeschooling to carry out, and the nursery run to do. But I was well prepared that the main event would carry on in the evening. Oh, the excitement.
As soon as 5pm hit, my kids unveiled their plan. They giggled with sheer, unbridled excitement as they informed me we were going to have to call for a “pizza BROUGHT BY A DELIVERY DRIVER” and have “popcorn AND ice-cream, for dessert.” What a treat!
The venue: My living room
The food: Takeaway pizza, popcorn, ice-cream
The film: Jumanji (the original)
Note: I don’t where the idea to watch Jumanji came from (as in, the original, 1995 version) but my daughter was adamant that it was to be that one, not the one from 2017. Not even the latest, 2019 version. Nope – the one we watched featured a young Robin Williams, and an even younger Kirstin Dunst. I may have been turning 39, but it was exactly like being 14, again.
Spoiler alert: we loved Jumanji. We all loved Jumanji. We yelped at the sudden appearance of a lion, and screamed when there was a stampede, and sighed when poor Peter found himself changed into a monkey.
We also rushed en masse at the poor Papa John’s pizza delivery driver as soon as he pressed the doorbell, and the kids found it the height of excitement to have their very own takeaway pizza box for the first time.
Even the three-year-old enjoyed himself, though admittedly he was a little scared of the giant bugs that featured in the film, and did take himself off to bed at 7.30pm (we had to pause while I ushered him into his pyjamas and gave him a cuddle).
It may not have been high-octane excitement or entertainment, and perhaps I’ll get the chance to celebrate in a slightly more grown-up way now bars, pubs and restaurants are reopening – but I consider myself extremely lucky to have had two heart-melting homemade cards, some ‘birthday cake’ flavour ice-cream, and – most importantly – two very happy children.
And isn’t that what birthdays are all about?
