Nah Then Mardy Mum: How Does One Scramble A Snake?

If you think your life is lacking a bit of chaos, or you just generally like the idea of having your house trashed, throw your child a party. That's my advice this week.

Our youngest turned 3 on Friday, quite unbelievably. She's seemed like a 3 year old already for quite some time, as she follows her older brother and cousin around, learning their tricks and teaching them new ones. She's a very independent girl, the sort who will probably break a few glass ceilings in a few years. She knows what she wants, and she knows how to get it.

The Birthday Girl in the Deep, Dark Wood.

And she wanted a Gruffalo party. Now, I love planning. I love Pinterest boards and lists and making notes about the best and most creative way to mess, I mean, make things. I'm not the best at crafts - many an attempt has turned into disaster. As their birthdays are within 2 months of each other, we alternate the parties every year, with Dylan having his even ages, and Ava having the odd ages. That gives me a good year between parties to recuperate and re-plan. My next post will be about past parties, so I won't go into detail here.

So, Gruffalo party. I scoured the supermarkets for Gruffalo produce, and failed miserably. Frozen stuff, everywhere. Peppa Pig stuff, tripping over it. Minions? Annoyingly in your face. But The Gruffalo? Nowhere to be seen. This was a job for the craft box.

So I made a poster, drawing a picture using an image from Google. I made the little signs for the food, and the autumn leaves for the general decorations. I then realised I hate myself, and therefore needed to make my life even more complicated by introducing the idea of a treasure hunt for the kids. I made the sheets, included a magnifying glass and hid three (one each for my two, one for my nephew) of each treasure around the garden. We had fox paw prints (or pebbled with Sharpie scribbled on them), owl eggs (or bouncy balls, which should really be called "Satan's Own Balls" for the amount of chaos they create) and a toy snake. When they found all three, they were rewarded with some bubble mixture. Sounds easy, and the kids loved it, but the ballache when it came to the planning means I probably wouldn't do it again (actually, I would. I'm a glutton for punishment, it seems).

But then, the next problem arose in my planning. How does one actually scramble a snake?

My nephew is vegetarian, and I know he's a fan of the Gruffalo too. It would have broken my heart to turn him away from the buffet, when this was his chance to sample some of the foods from the book. I aimed for as much of a veggie friendly feast as possible, and did alright (minus the odd sausage roll and Jaffa cake). I came up with French Fries for scrambled snake, after turning down the idea of actually doing any real baking. Pinterest was filled with "bake your own sausage rolls and dye them green, so simple, you gotta try this!". How's about no. In Yorkshire, when all else fails, we use crisps. Owl ice cream? Well, using Ava's Lego ice cream cones, I plonked a few marshmallow/ coconut snowballs in them, with owl face toppers. I was as surprised as you that marshmallow are vegetarian, but they were. Now, roasted fox? I had the brilliant idea of using those cat face shaped bread cakes, but they had sold out. Normal breadcakes it was. Ham was out of the question, so cheese would have to do. Thinking back, I could have gone to more effort with this, but as you can imagine, I'd stopped caring by now.

Monster Munch make good Gruffalo claws, and a few raspberries (and grapes, because they're Ava's favourite) made for Forest Fruits. And what of the Gruffalo Crumble? Why, muffins with orange icing eyes, of course! Unless, you come to ice the eyes the night before the party and find you've bought a tube of icing colouring, not icing. Cue frantic Googling, resulting in a hastily bought packet of Skittles and Jelly Tots. Jelly Tots are vegan, apparently. Who knew?! So muffins with Orange Skittle eyes would have to do. Just a note, by the way, never bite into a muffin with Skittles in. They don't go together very well. But they looked ok, and that's what matters.

And, the most important thing, the cake. I googled and googled. I considered baking, which is a sure sign I've started to lose it. I don't bake. It's a guaranteed fail whenever I even try. So I knew I had to buy one. As it turned out, Tesco do a Gruffalo cake! Yes! No baking for me! Ava's day would not be ruined.

So we went to the biggest Tesco in the city, the day before the party. Frozen cakes, Peppa Pig cakes. The annoying Minion. But no Gruffalo. Back in the car. A screaming Ava who wants her Gruffalo cake. A tired husband spending his first day off in two weeks cake shopping. A stressed out me worrying about the idea of actually baking a cake. The next Tesco was even more useless. A value range sponge and jam thing, and just one other. That sodding Minion again! After a lot of internal swearing, I decided to give it up as a bad job. To Asda, where anything would have to do.

We briefly considered the owl shaped cake we'd seen a week before, but that was sold out. Then Ava decided that The Gruffalo wasn't what she wanted after all, and instead picked the cat shaped one. Like hell, Ava Mae. You're having a bloody Gruffalo party if it kills me. A caterpillar cake? Too scary. Disney Princess? Too irrelevant. The Minion? Not in a thousand years will that thing ever grace my home. Last chance saloon. The "Draw Your Own" cake. It was pre-baked, so I wouldn't even have to turn the oven on. It was just a plain, white cake with three edible ink pens. "You could draw The Gruffalo on it." Tom said. I can't. Not with the pressure of making it perfect. "Or, I noticed they do a chocolate egg in the shape of a Gruffalo a few aisles back. Get that and stick it on."

And so, that is the tale of how I completely avoided baking for my daughters birthday. It was for her own good. Buying supermarket cake doesn't make me a bad person. It makes me a better person for not subjecting everyone to a burnt, over-iced mess covered in sickly sprinkles. I had to stay up late, making cake toppers in the shape of Gruffalo characters, and I did have to do a bit of artwork using the edible pens, but over all, I think it was slightly better than the Tesco one. And certainly better than that bloody Minion.

The finished cake

My advice with kids parties?
Plan, plan and plan.
Plan for if the first plan goes wrong.
Always assume you need more time that you anticipated for setting it up.
Don't let the kids see the party food until the last minute, or you have a very difficult battle on your hands.
Unless you are trained, buy the cake.
And, most importantly, get some wine in for after the party, and everyone has gone home. This information could save a life. Pass it on.