Lola's Birthday - Part 1

Lola's Friends
Lola has a great group of friends and her birthday celebrations wouldn't have been complete without them. So, with some trepidation, I agreed that Lola could have a 'girlie' lunch in the garden on the Saturday before her birthday.

What do 13 Year Old Girls Like?
Getting the tone right was quite a challenge - how do you keep 13 year old girls entertained without appearing to try too hard? I'd only ever met Lola's friends a few times but knew them to be a sassy bunch of girls and was keen not to do anything that might be perceived as 'uncool' - the modern mother's dilemma.

Lola Says

Lola gave me plenty of advice.

Nothing too babyish, and definitely no pink.

Robbie Williams is naff, but U2 are cool.

They wanted to watch a dvd in the afternoon and chose their own title - Donnie Darko - a fairly adult choice at a 15 rating but all the parents were happy for them to watch it as they'd seen it before. Ironically, Lola was the only who hadn't!

Rainy Morning
It rained on the morning of Lola's lunch so she wasn't very happy, nor was she keen on the flowery napkins and red streamers I'd found in the John Lewis sale when I went shopping earlier. But the sun came out mid-morning and lasted until mid-afternoon, by which time they'd eaten lunch, so everything worked out fine in the end.

Lola conceded that the napkins were 'okay' after all and the streamers looked great dangled from the trees. An added touch of sophistication was bubbles in tiny plastic champagne bottles (left over from a previous party) and the girls had great fun blowing them all over the garden.

On My Own
For me, it was exhausting but exhilirating. The 'boys' of the house left me to it and went to the cinema to see Superman instead, so I was chief waitress and organiser. I didn't mind though - I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It was lovely seeing Lola and her friends having such a good time, chatting eagerly and and laughing loudly (girls can make a lot of noise!).

A 'Perfect' Day
All in all it was a great success. I was pleased because the girls ate huge amounts of food (I was worried they might all be on diets). They were also polite and well-mannered but made themselves at home.

The thing that pleased me most was the obvious affection they have for Lola and how comfortable she is with them - the sign of a good friendship.

Lola enjoyed being centre stage and received some very unusual and thoughtful presents. Luckily, she didn't think it too babyish to have a cake, so we all sang Happy Birthday while she blew out the candles.

When she told me afterwards that the day had been 'perfect', I knew it was all worthwhile.