Arianna is turning 1 in less than 2 weeks. [Where has the time gone???] And being her first birthday, we are planning a birthday party for her. I have been stressing out about this for sometime now. Actually ever since watching an episode on some parenting program shot in London and they had interviewed parents about birthday parties. It freaked me out that the people on the show took birthday parties so seriously!

One example that stuck out like a sore thumb was that it is a must to prepare party packs for the children attending the party. And separate ones at that too – boys and girls party packs should be different. And no silly things should be in there either. When I was in primary school, I remember celebrating my birthday in class and Mum would prepare these small party packs for my friends in class and they would contains simple things like sweets, chocolates and maybe a balloon or 2. But nup, none of that now….now they want better things instead like toys and stuff. So that got me a little wind up coz not only would this be costing us excessively [kiddie stuff are rarely cheap], I had no idea what to get in the first place!

To make matters worst, one of the mums in my forum was writing about her preps for her daughter’s birthday which just past this Saturday and despite only turning 1 just like Arianna, she had gotten a fairy to come entertain kids and bought foot long alphabets that spelt out the kid’s name. [Was ‘Ela’ but still, the thought!] And I thought to myself, ‘Omg…..’ compared to her, we weren’t doing much at all!!!

We are planning to call some of my family and some of Ted’s friends over for a BBQ out in our unit’s compound as it is equip for picnics/BBQs. We are excited about trying out our new Weber that MIL got for Ted for his birthday this year and I am excited about blowing up this air castle thing that Ted got with the points from his credit card. Other than that, we are not really doing much. Of course there will be balloons here and there but what with a BBQ out in the open, it is going to be tough. We’ll see how things go but for now, I’ve decided that I’m scrapping the whole party pack idea and the moment I decided to heck with it, I instantly felt a sudden burden lifted off my chest and I could literally breathe better!

Now, the only thing that is stressing me out is the food! I know it’s going to be mainly steak and sausages, but I’m planning to cook my all famous and fav [as I noticed that it is here – don’t know why] fried macaroni, get this awesome dip that one of Ted’s friends whipped up last Christmas and I absolutely love it, some fruits and jelly for the kids. Of course we’ll get some lollies and chocolates for the kids as well. The extras are only to cut the taste of all meat. When I told Ted about the fairy coming to that party, all he said was the kid is going to be more interested in the wrapping paper than anything else!

I can quite agree with him. J Counting down the days to this big event because it will be on me alone preparing the food. Ted will be in charged of the BBQ of course. This is also freaking me out because I’m so scared that it will not turn out as I expect. Normal la, when you are cooking something for people, it always backfires! SO here’s keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the jelly and fried macaroni doesn’t die on me. The last time we had a big event to handle, I had my sis around to help me…but not this time. *sigh* Scary lor…..