Queenie Advances A Year.

My darling niece, Queenie (child, not chicken) has celebrated her 3^rd Birthday this week. On Sunday, she had a right royal 'Pretty Pink Princess & Dashing Princes Party' for 30 small, screaming children and their frazzled parents.

Sweet Mother!  From this experience I learnt that children’s parties are neither for the feint hearted or childless.  So many children jacked up on sugar racing through your house screaming, crying, snotting and wiping something brown down your cream walls.  Ooh-eh-eh, this sort of thing can only be dealt with via an intravenous Gin & Tonic, unfortunately in order to appear like responsible adults even I, a mere aunt in the proceedings, was unable to crack open a beer until the mini-revelers had departed at around noon.

Queenie had a wail of a time; somebody gave her little pink sunglasses, which she refused to remove for the remainder of the morning.  My mother was alarmed that they might be a little dark, especially after Queenie walked into a tree.  But we decided it was easier to allow her to continue in her Stevie Wonder gogs than to attempt to wrestle them off her on her birthday, mid-sugar rush.  Ever the Madame she employed no fewer than 4 costume changes through the day starting with a long pink party dress (her mermaid dress, as she likes to call it), moving into a yellow Disney Belle (Beauty & the Beast) frock, then into more casual mickey mouse T-shirt and leggings and finally ending the day in a red pinafore with pink feather boa.

My sister had one hour of a sleep and produced a marvelous topsy-turvy chocolate cake with white chocolate icing, as well as pink macaroons and a variety of other baked goodies.  Clearly I cannot understand the depth of a mother’s love, because the only thing I have ever stayed up all night to complete was a 5 000 word politics essay due at 7am, a task achieved purely out of fear, the threat of having to pay my parents’ back my entire varsity tuition upon failure was a major motivator.

The party was pink and sweet and girlie, filled with mothers I did not know, a few token fathers and what seemed like thousands of children.  With each scream and snot encrusted nose that shrieked past I felt my ovaries shriveling, tumbleweeds rattling around the ghost town that is my womb.  I decided that should I ever have children I will outsource their parties (to my sister, what an amazing aunt she will be) or simply Photoshop their tiny heads onto existing party photos.  Well yes dear your third birthday does look a lot like Queenie’s isn’t it amazing how well the family have aged.  And that is your friend Johnny, oh, you don’t remember him well you were only 3.  Yes, that topsy-turvy cake does look familiar.  I recon I could keep this going till age 21.  Oh, don’t you remember Brad Pitt came to your 4^th Birthday and here you are partying with Suri Cruise…

On a more serious note however I absolutely adore my darling little Queenie.  I am in awe of the dichotomy of her little personality - the fragile vulnerability rushing up against fierce stubbornness.  In her I see the echoes of my genetic history - my sister’s naughty pixie face, my mother’s stubbornness, my father’s crazy humour and my love of a fashion accessory.  Although she is not mine, she is my blood and sometimes looking at her I am amazed by the fierceness of the love that bubbles in my chest.  She is perfect even in her little imperfections, an amazing little human.  So my darling Queenie on your 3^rd Birthday I wish you enough happiness to keep that pixie grin lighting up your English rosebud cheeks, enough hardship to grant you wisdom in lessons learnt and enough love to change the world. 

Happy Birthday Babes!