Chaos at the Kindy Christmas Party

Her eyes darted around the room and she opened a bag just a crack to show us what was inside.

'I bought some champagne,' she said, almost embarrassed.

'Me too,' another Mum admitted. Suddenly they were very popular at the Kindy Christmas party, handing out tiny plastic cups of the good stuff, parents fortifying themselves against the forty or more children, the heat of the day, and the table full of sugar.

A bottle and a half quickly disappeared, but then, as tends to happen, everyone was too polite to ask for more. 

Santa had been and gone.  I had managed to write the wrong child's name on my Secret Santa gift, causing a kerfuffle I missed entirely because I was having hot flushes (not caused by champagne) and needed to sit outside with a plate of cheese and crackers.

The toddlers found a drink fountain and a helpful Kindy-kid had turned it on for them, flooding the vicinity and providing a lovely big mud puddle for them to splash around in.

Needless to say, it wasn't too long before the toddlers were saturated and demanding their clothes be taken off.  Well, it's not really a party until someone gets naked.  Three someones in this case.

Mouths stained green with Christmas-Tree coloured icing, the kids ran riot with their new toys.  Boys blew each other up and whacked innocent bushes with their new swords, girls danced around with their new glittery and sparkly toys.  Mums and the occasional dad loitered around the food table, the kids certainly weren't interested.

We've lost the naked toddlers!  Nope, there they are - behind the building, using plastic cups to transfer wood chips from the garden beds to the footpaths.  A Kindy-kid sneaks up behind them and dumps a full cup of sand over Miss Curly Mop, straight down her back and into her nappy.  I yell indiscriminately and spend the next five minutes consoling the toddlers, assuring them it's not them who are in trouble. 

For some reason the Mop is unperturbed by a nappy full of wood chips and dirt.  Kids are weird - she freaks out if she has a tomato seed on her chin, but she is okay to get around with a garden bed in her bottom.

In that inexplicable manner of kids, they seem to be amping up and winding down at the same time.  The mums sweep up popcorn and cake crumbs, tired from just watching, envious of how their offspring seem to draw energy from nothing more than their mates and the sun.  If scientists figured out how to make energy the same way kids do, we could solve the climate change crisis with nothing more than a 5th birthday party.