9 is a tricky age. They are gone too old for indoor play areas and too young to be going out boozing with their friends. Even ditch drinking with their friends. That will be in a couple of years. So we were at odds to come up with a plan for a party this year. One of the other mothers had a fake sleepover during the day where are the girls would get into their dressing gowns and pj's and their mother who was a make up artist had all the bells & whistles out such as cucumber eyes and face masks etc. However I will send you into shock here, I am not a make-up artist. So this was out. They probably would all come out looking like The Joker from the "Good" Batman. Anyway it was decided that Jump Land would be the venue for the upcoming party.
Now I know what you are thinking. And to save some anxiety I will tell you. What is Jump Land?
Good question.
Jump Land is a warehouse with a shit load of trampolines. 4 giant trampolines in an enclosed space and a load of little trampolines for an individual. Jump Land started as an adult fitness class but when kids started getting visiting them , they had a great idea. To hold kids parties. And now adult classes have taken the back seat in favour of the gold mine that is kids events. Being from rural Ireland we are slightly behind the curve when it comes to kids events. There was a pumpkin making party last year for example which cost 5 euro for entry in and all there was was a load of pumpkins in a field so there is room for improvement here.
Anyway the party was divided into two groups. The kids from the area which is around 10 kids. They have formed a close knit bond like the Goonies just without the pirate ship and for @zuerich peace of mind without the retarded guy following them around. They are also from a diverse group of nationalities which is healthy for the kids so they don't become racist. So we asked all their parents and got permission to bundle them all into two cars , baby seats flying all over the place, and isofixes being cursed left right and centre. So they were all in. The other group was the school friends. All cheeky and scary where you have to be careful how you word things because they will eat you alive. Have the latest pop hit on standby just in case you get a stammer because they immediately start singing along to it. APT A P T. APT A P T.
My daughter is a big fan of Sat nav app Wazes and I have to say that I am as well after being saved from a number of speeding fines because some guy in front of me reported the speed van on his app. But this sat nav also has various funny sat navigation voices and evil genius is the new one. So there was a great laugh at the evil genius guiding us to Jump Land which was funny. My little one is weird. You could spend $1000 quid on something but the bit she enjoys the most is something trivial. For example we spent the guts of €5000 going to Disneyland Paris and she got this curious disliking to Space Mountain. Even though she was too small to even think about going on it , it became this mental block with her and she couldn't wait to see the back of Disneyland. Only for her granddad dropping his travel suitcase down a swirly stairs which traveled down three flights was the holiday redeemed. The luggage ended up on the ground floor and all I heard was a roar of kids laughter up the stairs while granddad ran after his suitcase. Ask her what her favourite part of Disneyland was and we get the suitcase story.
So sat nav went down well and as we entered Jump Land, we were met by a Polish girl who had legs like tree trunks from spending the last 5 years growing her business and doing adult classes in jumping. Her calf muscles had another calf muscle on her calf muscles. She instructed the party to go on the huge trampoline first. And within the first five minutes it was like the opening montage to Saving Private Ryan. Kids bumping into each other, kids flying like a grenade had just blown up. Multiple calls for help. One boy was calling for his mammy. The instructors finally got them in order and took them to the individuals trampolines where they have a trampoline stage and the birthday girl would kick off jumping to music and doing a little dance and the rest had to copy her. My daughter being her daddy's child opted to stay in the shadows until she had a few drinks into her and her most extrovert friend decided to take on the task of being jump master general. Everyone else followed including my little 5 year old boy who was loving the K Pop and twirling and dancing away. He then pretended to zap me with a pretend gun in which I proceeded to book him in for a tour of the local abattoir as soon as he was done with this party. The boy was the only boy at the party and I confidently think that he enjoyed this party more than anything in his life. He asked us straight away could he have his 6th party here and if he could bring all the girls.
Half way through the longest 2 hours of my life, the Jump Land crew revealed a hidden door called the spiderman room which was a climbing room for kids. Role on Saving Private Ryan part two montage with kids falling off walls and landing funny and me bringing them out for water in a hope it would cure a serious spinal injury and not get sued. The instructors were also nervous of the same occurance and the magic back spray was applied to any injured party. One of the girls from the neighbourhood didn't like noise so she went to the trampolines vacated by the locusts. I was summoned to follow this child around and make sure she was happy so I ended up on a trampoline myself which was great fun. OH darn it I have to go on a trampoline. WORST PARTY EVER. WOOO HOOO. My calves are very sore this morning though
The musical chairs round was next but with a twist. The children ran around , you have guess it , trampolines, and when the musical stopped they had to jump in a trampoline. There was one trampoline less so the girl who ended up with no trampoline had to sit on a trampoline deeming this one out of the game as well. Pretty clever. One of the girls from the neighbourhood called Xi Chen who is only just 4 and was just gathered up with the rest of the neighbourhood kids like a fishing net was legging it around the place for musical chairs. Her run for some reason was perfectly suitable for this type of game. Unlike the Irish children with arms and legs flailing , Xi had her arms down by her sides and took baby steps like a Geisha so when the music stopped she darted onto a trampoline like she was floating. I watched in awe at Xi take out around 20 nine year old's to win the musical trampolines. In the final a clever 9 year old who slowed down near the vacant trampoline and sped up with the occupied trampolines was the clear favourite. But Xi was darting around the place in a blur breaking the land speed record. The music stopped and little Xi jumped onto the trampoline. I jumped for joy in the victory like I was a proud coach and let our a yelp watching Xi take the coveted musical trampoline cup.
Food arrived then and this is where I burst into action. Can I have ketchup, Can I have another chicken strip, I don't like salt, Have you any orange juice? My mammy makes this nicer, I spilled my orange juice, Have you any sausages? I don't like the sausages. have you any prawn crackers , would you have a lamb balti? My daddy says I'm a muslim."FUCCCKKKKK OFFFFF" , I said in my mind after the catering delivered every type of fast food you can think of. But I kept my cool and waited on every child hand on foot. There was panic after the two trays of chicken goujons were being demolished and kids started asking for more like in Oliver. But yet there was two pizzas untouched and a shit load of cocktail sausages which I was tucking into on the sly. After ordering around 100 goujons there were only ten left. One little troll asked for another one and she had 2 still on her plate after giving her 5 at the start. The greedy so and so. "When you finished those two we will give you another one" I said. So she stuffed her face with the other two just to prove her point. I gave her one more through gritted teeth and slanted eyes I had made a new enemy. Thankfully she had less Hive Power than me this time but who knows?!? After that tornado the kids went back jumping which was a recipe for disaster but fortunately we did not see any of the food come back up.
It was cake time and instead of the mess of cutting a cake. We chose 20 cupcakes which each child got one. Noone can argue with that until they started asking for more. Same thing again. One bun wasn't touched and asking for one more. A trip to the Gulags for you young woman. Another round of jumping and it was time to go home. Party bags were handed out and the girls were ferried to their parents before they could look in their own party bags to start swapping things with their friends. The returning parents knew the story and they grabbed the party bags straight away not to hold them up. The collection process is an awkward dance. You can't converse too much as the queue will grow larger. Plus you have to tell each parents the list of injuries obtained for their child so they can take the appropriate action and do nothing. Last year one parent asked us what we had given their daughter in way of food because she was sick. The same as everyone else that wasn't sick but we stopped short in telling the parent that if she wasn't such a greedy animal stuffing her face with 100 marshmallows the minute she got in the door , she mightn't have been sick. So with the school friends gone it was time to round up the neighbourhood United Nations and bundle them into the car. A couple of them were falling asleep in the car during our 5 minute commute home. Xi was smiling hugging her trophy which was obviously the best day of her life and plotting her next musical trampolines win. One parent text us saying that their child went straight up to bed and conked out. I felt like conking out myself. That is it for another year thank god and this is the end of the 9 year olds party.