well, my big five year old boy had a most awesome time at his pirate party on sunday. we played pass the parcel (or "parcel parcel" as he calls it), tug-o-war - i helped the girls team as they were one man (woman, rather) down, until they boys cried "unfair! there's a mum helping!" and the pinata worked beautifully (14 layers of newpaper held together with the old flour glue was spot on for them to all have three turns at whacking). the dreaded pirate ship cake actually turned out very well by my standards, and i gathered everyone near the end and we sang happy birthday to my boy, hip-hip-hooray-ed and then he turned to me and said "but mum - what do i blow out?". very embarrased to realise i had neglected to place the especially purchased black glitter candles on said cake. quickly fixed my omission and we sang a super-speed round two birthday greeting to him and he happily blew out his five candles.

my lovely siblings came early and went nuts with the decorations, inside and out. the huge jolly roger flag flying from the kid's fortress looked ace (it is still there now) and now we are back to the usual daily grind.

after getting the kids off this morning, i hope to get into my commission list. this afternoon i have to take my son  for what i am hoping will be his final ultrasound following his kidney surgery three and a half years ago. there is no sign that things haven't been going beautifully since our previous scan and  i have every confidence that the follow-up appointment to this scan will be our last.