Organic cake, Whoop Ass and Lord of the Flies....or, A Seven Year Old's Birthday Party.

Gracie's birthday party was on Saturday. We decided to do a home party this year because last year we hosted at Cosmic Germventures, we ended up shelling out a kajillion dollars for a) a place for kids to play b) unmotivated teens who drew stick figures on the kids cheeks and called it "face painting" and c) watered down orange "drink" and tartrazine laden cake (leave me alone, tartrazine is my latest nemesis in life).
And so, the home party. Grace is on a spy kick, so I made a cake that looks like a spy glass. Did you hear what I just said (wrote?) I made a cake. In a shape. That was not a square. And I iced it. And decorated it. And wrote names and stuff on it. I'm usually the gal at Loblaws barking out orders as to what decorations should be on the cake and where, but this time I did it myself.....and it was organic (bragging rights!) I guess I thought the organic-ness of the cake might have a calming, kumbaya effect on Gracie's peeps. No such luck.
The one extravagance we allowed ourselves was to hire a magician. A nice man, who came to do a nice show. I'm sure when he saw the girls and one boy, squeaky clean and dressed to the nines, he thought it was going to be an easy gig. Heh.
I literally had to physically remove a creature from his pant leg. I had to time out a child THAT WAS NOT MY OWN on the stairs for harassing him ("I know your secrets!" "You're boring!"). One child was contorted in such a position for the entire show that I thought she was waiting for a diaper change. Seriously. I had to press pause on the video recorder, plug Edie's and my own mother's ears when one child went off on a "friggin" tangent. I'm sure the magician wanted to take his wand and whisk these little cretins to Guantanamo Bay. The show ended to cheers and to boos. The room was divided. The lines had been drawn. The mood had been set. There were kids who wanted to please me (I like these kids) and the kids who wanted to create complete anarchy (respect - I am an ex-punk rocker after all).
For the final hour I had to entertain with games and prizes. I pretty much relieved Jonas of his duties as he a little bit more old school than me and was itching to open a can of whoop ass on the anarchists.
As for the games and prizes? When one child opened her prize, she loudly exclaimed "I hate this!" which led some other children to also voice their dislike of their prizes. I felt like Piggy in Lord of the Flies. You know what darlings? Here's a dollar. Go to the dollar store and pick your own freaking gift. Luckily my lovely Grace had more grace than I and suggested the kids trade gifts so everyone could get something they like.
There more moments of loveliness, including seeing Gracie's face when she was the magicians assistant, hearing one of her friends jump to Edie's defence when another girl was picking on her, watching the kids gobble up my cake and enjoying my efforts, hearing them say it was an awesome party when their parents came to pick them up, and that brings me to the best part of all, the parents coming to pick them up.
Grace had a blast. That was also the best part of all.