Little Bean turns Two

My beautiful baby Sabrina is two. It’s one of those truly bitter sweet moments in life. On the one hand I’m bubbling over with excitement every time she produces a new skill from her bag of tricks but on the other hand each new word, each scribbly texta line is glaring reminder that very soon people are going to start saying "Gosh that Sarah really babies her youngest doesn’t she."
Sabrina’s special toy is Jemima Puddle Duck so I was informed by her big sisters that for her second birthday a Puddle Duck Party was an absolute necessity and this is how we did it.
The day before the weather suddenly turned from icy rain spattered winds to the Sahara desert so, to prevent piles of shrivelled dehydrated children from collecting in exhausted heaps in the backyard, we thought we would give them all a bottle of water to carry around with then throughout the day. I made fancy pants labels for each of them with the child’s name on it so that they could always keep track of their own bottle. Then I thought the babies probably wouldn’t cope with a screw top so we bought a packet of disposable sippy cups. I’ve never used them before, we had the snack containers but I didn’t chuck them after a single use. Anyway the cups looked adorable all lined up together and they worked wonderfully till the lids exploded off them and all the babies were drenched in water, good thing the weather was so hot.

I didn’t put up any balloons or streamers, I know how unpartyish of me. Eli is never comfortable around balloons and I find it a little hard to concentrate on entertaining hoards of children after hyperventilating so I left it up to God to provide the decorations.

I mean really what bit of stretched out plastic could compete with the glory of his creation anyway…

…and Beatrix Potter loved farms and gardens….

….she devoted her life to recording nature through illustrations, so its fitting, I’m not cheap , really I’m not.

Each child had a tiny little basket with a name tag attached to it.

I even made boy coloured ones so the guys didn’t feel like they were stuck in totally uncool Girl Land.

These little baskets were set up on a table along with glue, wool and feathers and a sign asking the kids to pretend to be a Puddle Duck and feather their nest. Because of average age of the guests was, well, tiny I didn’t have a start or finish time on any activities I just set up stations and let the kids float from one thing to the next as their limited attention spans guided them.

Another activity station was Make You Own Garden. Seeds, dirt and an egg carton chopped up into segments was provided and the kids could make their own egg carton garden.

I don’t know how many successful gardens were made but they had fun sticking their fingers in dirt and looking at the different seeds.

These little critters were hanging out in another spot. Glenn printed and laminated some of Beatrix Potters illustrations and attached the to a paddle pop stick. Then I filled plant pots with sand and stuck them in along with a few garden clippings.

Then it was just up to their imaginations.

We had a pass the parcel, of course (I have been reliably informed by a certain almost 10yr old that it’s just not a real party without a pass the parcel). Each layer contained a chocolate and one gorgeous little book. I found them on the Book Depository. They were a box set and they aren’t babied down versions each one is the complete tale as she wrote it illustrations and all.

Though I think Sabrina may have been more interested in the chocolate.

Poor Glenn rose to the challenge of Pass the Parcel in a poky little lounge room gently warmed to match the surface temperature of the Sun, stuffed full of twenty little people, with a broken air conditioner hanging uselessly from the wall while a couple of Mum’s and I went outside to hide ducks.

You see Jemimah was a pretty useless mother. In human standards she’d be lining up for the dole with a cigarette hanging from her mouth winging about the unfairness of life as her kids played hopscotch on the highway. So I though perfect we can have a Duck Hunt to find her wondering babies.

I was going to be sensible and by plastic bath ducks but the shops have begun to fill with Christmas frippery and ducks aren’t high up on their keep-stocked-up list, so in the end I sewed 20 little ducks by hand. Did I mention my sewing machine blew up?



Once they found their ducks, the nests they made earlier suddenly had a purpose, oh the excitement!

Oh yeah and they had a few lollies attached to them, double win.

I’m actually glad the shops were duckless I think these guys look cuter even if I did run out of time and painted the eyes on.

I love parties, I love being able to gather up all those faces that mean so much to us and stick them all in one hot sweaty room. And one of those super cool little faces belongs to this handsome lad. It was such an amazing present that Finn was able to come and that he looks so well. Finn is 8mths older than Sabi and Jo and I sort of thought these two would grow up together but Finn has spent the last year of his little life in isolation battling cancer. His story is here. Sabi knows him only through pictures and video so it is beyond exciting that this little guy is back on the happening scene for hip two year olds.

I often wonder how much a little one gets out of their own birthday part but Sabi was thrilled especially when they all started singing happy birthday to her. She thought it was the bees knees (sorry, I’ve never used that expression before and I had a sudden urge)


She also thought it was pretty cool that we let her sit on the table and wield an incredibly dangerous knife.

After lunch and cake we made sure all of the guests were loaded up with all their party paraphernalia and then sent them on their way with a party bag. The party bags were filled with home made lollies because I’m as mad as a march hare. I was thinking of the duck nests as the party bags till I realised that chocolate and feathers isn’t the best combination. So I folded up Christmas catalogues to some origami pattern I found on the internet at 1:00am the night before. Again, I’m not cheap just resourceful.

Sabrina loved waving everyone good bye, not that she wanted them to go, just she loves saying Good Bye.
Well that was the Duck Party and all there is left to say now is:
"Happy Birthday my Curly Whir
ly Baby Bean mwah mwah mwah" (Gosh she babies that girl!)