Middle-aged blues

My daughter had her birthday party yesterday, and as she's newly a pre-teen and feels she is growing up, she wanted to have all the girls in her class to sleep over. So we stupidly said yes. I must have been hoping that Mark would switch on and be a responsible parent, and Mark must have been lost in sentimental sweetness.

So it was yesterday, and actually it was very sweet. I was a bit sad, because last year they sang the Happy Birthday songs so beautifully and the H.B. songs are much nicer in Danish, and my maternal heart swelled and I thought, Oh gosh, here we are in Denmark, here we go. This year, because all I was doing was running around anxiously in serving mode with food, and Mark was in Odense for a conference, they were loutish, and did loud snatches of one sort of song and then loud snatches of another, polished off by Laila having taught them 'You look like a monkey and you smell like one too'. Which really made me annoyed.

But the rest of it was sweet, and apart from chocolate cake being ground into the floor we can now never afford to replace the mess etc wasn't too bad. But some of them got up this morning at five and made a lot of noise - and I should think all the neighbours were woken too, tho none of them have said anything about it because children are so worshipped here - and that was it, I am completely wrecked for the whole of the rest of the day. I've tried going back to bed, I've tried watching the Hairspray they rented, I've tried pigging out on chocolate cake, I've tried to go to sleep on a rug in the garden in the gorgeous sun, and I still just feel awful and am just waiting to go to bed tonight.

And it's all because I'm MIDDLE AGED. :-(

But I'm being really vicious to Laila to make up, and that makes me feel a bit better ! :-))