It's party time

October is a busy month chez FDMTG as boy one and two both have their birthdays this month, so I find myself in the annual round of chasing up RSVPs to find out if 1, 10, 20 or 30 of their friends plans to attend, tracking down elusive themed party decorations, expelling expletives over the cost of balloons - how can a puff of helium in a plastic bag cost so much - and generally tearing my hair out.

I am not sure quite how children's parties go so out of control. Back in my day parties were held at home, there was pass the parcel with just the one prize, pin the tail on the donkey, jelly and ice cream and a slice of cake wrapped in a napkin to take away.

Nowadays you have to hire a hall and a professional entertainer months in advance, order decorations, usually themed to go with some long defunct show or film that the boys are currently obsessed with, at great expense online and amass a party bag that would have constituted a proper present back in the 70s.

And I consider my parties to be relatively restrained by modern standards. I don't hire in face painters or a bouncy castle and my party bags are a modest collection of cheap toys and a slice of cake. My boys have left parties in the past clutching hardback books as going away presents that probably cost more than the gift they had given to the birthday child.

The problem is that I LOVED birthday parties when I was young, which is why I love throwing them now. I still remember the excitement of going to my friend Sara's parties. I loved her house with its pastel carpets and neat decor, I loved the excitement of ripping the newspaper layers off pass the parcel, the enormous anticipation to see who would be the lucky one to win the prize. The thrill if it was you who got to unwrap that small package of sweets.

I adored the wonky iced home made fairy cakes showered with silver balls and multicoloured hundreds and thousands, none of your fancy swirly iced cup cakes back in the day. The ham sandwiches on white bread, the Hula Hoops and Monster Munch, the joy of mixing jewel bright jelly into milky ice cream and sucking up the messy results through a straw.

I want to give my children those treasured memories of special days with their friends, though I am not sure that they have the same degree of appreciation as they are just so pampered. What was a huge treat to me, is just an everyday weekend to them. They got to parties all the time and each one is more extravagant than the last, so it is hard to tantalise their jaded palates.

I know this is my fault as a parent. I know I should get tough and make my children appreciate how lucky they are so they can experience the same excitement I felt over birthday parties. Trouble is I find it so hard to spoil their fun by rolling out my own version of the Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch. So fingers crossed I will have pulled out enough stops to pique their interest this year, now I must go and track down a Dr Who birthday cake.

Bye bye baby

My oldest boy is in Year 2, my middle son is in Reception and my twins are almost two. I think I can safely say that the baby stage is behind me now. While we still have dual potty training to negotiate and twin two is stubbornly refusing to walk, we are on the home run now.

In one way that makes me feel relieved and hopeful that I might one day stop feeling so exhausted all the time, but in another it makes me feel a huge sense of loss that my baby days are over for good. I relish my sons' growing independence, but in the past by the time my youngest child was starting to walk, talk and feed himself I was plotting my next baby. This time I am entering uncharted territory as I know there won't be the patter of little feet on the way ever again.

I have wanted babies since I was in my mid-twenties. I had a few bumps along the way what with a first husband who wanted nothing to do with children, or indeed me as it turned out, but I eventually had my first boy when I was 32, then the next at 34 and the final two at 37. So for the last decade and a half my thoughts have been taken up with the acquisition of babies.

I spent most of my 20s longing for babies and all of my 30s pregnant or dealing with babies, so what does the next chapter of life hold? I am a little scared to look as my mind is still firmly rooted in the breeding phase.

I still can't pass Mothercare without cooing over the tiny newborn clothes. I can't quite get my head round the fact that I will never have to stock up on those bright yellow packs of Pampers New Born nappies, though I feel less sentimental about those brick sized maternity towels that sat so uncomfortably in my post baby pants.

I am sure there are other mothers who feel a sense of release that they will never again have to waddle about swollen with child, that they will never have to battle with feeding a newborn, or endure the endless sleepless nights that accompany the arrival of a new baby. These are the mums who ruthlessly throw out baby clothes the moment their child has grown out of them, toss out the buggy the instant their toddler is up on his feet, and joyfully button up their pre-baby jeans as they turn their trim, toned backs on the messy business of child rearing.

I am not one of those mothers. I am still hanging onto my huge post preggy belly, along with a whole lot more baggage that came along with my babies. I know I won't have another child, I don't even want one, but what I do want is a blueprint as to what happens next? As my children grow up and I am forced to wave goodbye to all things baby? Will the nostalgia fade, or must I simply hold on till I can grab my grandchildren out of their mother's arms to drink in that sweet scent of newborn baby?