My daughter Sophie turns 11 next week. She’s also in her last year of primary school. I am struggling with all of this to be honest. My girls seem to be growing up so fast, everything is changing so quickly and I’m just not sure I’m ready for it. I’d love to be able to turn the clock back a couple of years to slow it all down.
I believe that Sophie is ready for all these changes, I believe that she is handling it better than I am. My husband doesn’t talk about it much, I think he’d rather bury his head in the sand and pretend she is still his baby girl. I think the fact that Sophie is ready for the big changes that will happen in her life over the next couple of years means my husband and myself have done an ok job so far. I’ve always felt our job as parents is to prepare our girls for each new stage in their lives. The fact she’s ready to begin this new journey (even though we’re not) is a good thing.
Being a pre-teen of course means Sophie has very clear ideas on just how she would like to celebrate her 11th birthday. She took it upon herself to look up a couple of different options on the internet and work out all the pricing before coming to me and talking it through. I felt that alone was quite mature and so we sat down together and discussed the options.
First of all, it was time to create the invitations. Here’s a sample of the “Sophie Approved” final design.
Have you ever heard of Club Girly Girlz? Sophie has. It’s actually a pretty good idea, I have to admit. You simply book a party (make sure you do it way in advance as they do book up quickly), take the girls along where they get pampered and manicured, fed and watered and have an all round super fun time surrounded by lots of pink and lots of very pretty girly things.
Sophie has also asked to have a couple of friends stay over and there will of course be a birthday cake. I love how she took time to plan what she wanted to do and work out the cost. She’s beginning to understand just how much these type of things can cost, so hopefully will be appreciative of what we do for her.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the past couple of weeks, thinking back to when the girls were much smaller and wondering where our little family would be in 10 years. Well, here we are. The girls are growing up fast and are changing into lovely young ladies who (most of the time) are polite and a pleasure to be around. There’s certainly no magic recipe, we’re not perfect and neither are our kids, but I think we’re doing a pretty good job growing a great family.
I’d love to hear about how you celebrate birthdays in your family? Do you let you kids choose their own themes and activities? At what age should they be involved in the planning? And, as always, would love to hear your party ideas!
Until next time, take care, Nicky x
