EMMA HOLLINGWORTH: Double-header a time to celebrate
Two special celebrations are coming up in our household. First will be Mother's Day, of course, on Sunday, and the second is my eldest daughter's birthday, which just happens to fall on St Patrick's Day – March 17.
On Mother's Day I fully expect to be treated to breakfast in bed followed by a luxurious day of doing nothing more than being taken for lunch and relaxing later that night in a deep, bubbly bath.
Well that's the theory anyway. The reality is probably more likely that I will be woken in the early morning by one of the many offspring demanding that they be fed. I will then wearily limp down to the kitchen to oblige whichever has me up first. This hungry child will most likely be closely followed downstairs by its sibling. I will then rapidly try and down a cup of tea in order to try and wake up slightly before having to feed the third and final child.
After that I will be rushing around making sure the house is tidy, the kids are all dressed (appropriately) and I am showered and dressed before welcoming my parents to the house, who are arriving to take me and the crew out for lunch.
Lunch, although again nice in theory, will most likely consist of me and my husband trying to make sure the children stay well behaved in the company of their grandparents who are the types who believe children should be extremely well behaved at the table and should finish all they are presented with.
Both of these are nice ideas, but realistically I will probably end up fighting with my eldest daughter to make sure she eats at least three spoonfuls of her main course before she has her pudding. This will be mixed with telling my two-year-old son to sit down and stop throwing his food on the floor. These battles will be interspersed with a wailing baby demanding that she should be permanently latched on while I try and eat my – now cold – food one-handed (a skill I have mastered very well over my child-bearing years.)
My parents have said to take the children somewhere child-friendly after lunch. This we will most definitely need. But I am not sure whether my mother really wishes to spend her Mother's Day at some kids' play centre where your highlight is being able to drink a whole cup of tea without someone's brat careering past and knocking half the contents of your mug out.
The Mother's Day experience will not be the only thing which will keep me on my toes this weekend though - it's my daughter's sixth birthday.
Having had a letter from school warning parents to be careful handing out party invites as some children are feeling left out, we took the decision it would be fairest to just invite the whole class to our daughter's party. All 32 of them.
Now the pressure is on us to make sure the entertainment lives up to expectations.
Our child was born on March 17. Before her appearance we never really paid much attention to St Patrick's Day. But now we always feel a certain special warmth for a day we would not necessarily have felt the need to celebrate.
For those who want to celebrate in Sheffield visit http://www.sheffieldhelpyourself.org.uk/full_search_new.asp?group=20306 and http://sheffieldirish.org/programme2010.html.
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Weather for Sheffield
Thursday 24 May 2012
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