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Parties/celebrations

Whether you're planning a birthday or a hen do, you'll find plenty of ideas for your celebration on our Party forum.

Shirley's party advice part 4 - Better at party planning than Pippa Middleton

999 replies

BlatherskiteOfTheLivingDead · 29/10/2012 18:33

New thread :) Everyone welcome.

OP posts:
stealthsquiggle · 04/02/2013 20:59

Ah, now here is proof that my DC are not completely un-fussy. DS loathes all nuts, so won't eat satay, and they both hate pineapple so will pick that out of sweet and sour - but they do love the revolting orange sauce. That and sweet chilli sauce.

Blatherskite · 04/02/2013 21:07

DS will eat many, many things that astound me. Mainly odd fish things that you'd expect him to refuse - smoked haddock, smoked salmon, sardines with bones in...although he does seem to be getting less flexible with things he'll try recently.

DD on the other hand has a very limited diet and can't usually be relied upon to eat anything that isn't pizza or pasta. She tends to shock us in other ways - like munching happily on some meat feat pizza with spicy beef that made DH's eyes water.

It's a real pain and is part of the reason I like doing things like this and getting her to try really different things. She's getting a lot more flexible as she gets older and tried noodles and satay sticks yesterday which would never have happened a few months ago.

stealthsquiggle · 04/02/2013 21:09

Big fat udon noodles and permission to eat them with fingers might be fun? DD used to love them as "big fat worms" (and they would fit with a snake theme...)

Blatherskite · 04/02/2013 22:30

Snake noodles! Genius idea

Tinkerisdead · 05/02/2013 16:14

I'm reading this with awe actually blathers because dd1 is soooo fussy and frankly i get sick of making things that just get thrown away. Because finances are tight I get cautious if trying more adventurous stuff because i'd hate to waste the food/money.

Dh doesnt help because he wont eat veg and so im always trying to cook around him too. I'd like to do stirfries but i know he'd never consider eating them.

I did baby led weaning and she ate anything and everything. But at 2 she learned the phrase " i no like this" and stopped nigh on everything. She wont eat any veg. None. At. All.

She'll eat potato, chicken nuggets but not chicken, pasta but not mince(she scrapes spaghetti off calling it dirt), plain rice and the inside of a sausage but not the skin. Anything crisp she'll reject thinking its crusts. She'll eat pastry if i tell her its "pie biscuits". She shocked me by liking chorizo raw never cooked. For two years shes eaten ham sandwich, cheese pieces and fruit puree/yoghurt.

Only recently has she started eating pear taking her fruit repetoire to apple, banana, pear and strawberries. I give her vitamins each morning.

What will yours eat that she might attempt? This week shes been invited for tea. After much deliberation her friends mum offered nuggets waffles and spaghetti hoops. She now worries she doesnt like hoops. I never ever react as i dont want food issues but it really really wears me down. Everything is rejected. Roast dinners, shepherds pie, pizza is picked at, chips are whinged at, sauce of any kind is poison.

stealthsquiggle · 05/02/2013 19:00

I don't know where to start with that degree of fusiness, I am afraid. DD got a bit fussy, but school do family-style lunches, no choices, no packed lunch option, and they are strongly encouraged to have at least a bit of everything. The only battles we have over food now are because she gets distracted and then announces she has finished because she can't be bothered.

The only issue with DS is feeding him enough Shock - at 10 he is 5ft 4" and is a bottomless pit.

Blatherskite · 05/02/2013 21:55

I'm fairly sure we did all the same things with DD that we did with DS so I'm really not sure how one ended up so fussy while the other is so good.

Persistance seems to be paying off though. I offer the same things over and over and over, whatever we're eating and if it's rejected she goes hungry - unless she's been having a really bad week, then I might add beans to something I know she'll reject ir I'll just make pasta - and finally she's started trying things. She announced she likes chips the other day and ate 2 or 3 whereas before she would have refused to even have them on her plate. She's actually eating the potato when I make baked potato now too when before she would scrape the beans and cheese off the top.

I guess you already do hidden veg pasta sauce? There's a Jamie recipe to make a ragu sauce from sausages but she might reject it on the basis that it looks like bolognese. Maybe make it together? If she sees it sausages, she might try it and then you have a way in for mince?

stealthsquiggle · 05/02/2013 22:24

Oh it's completely luck of the draw, not anything you have done although DH not eating veg can't be helping My DM had 2 human dustbins and then DB2 who was quite seriously fussy at one point.

Blatherskite · 06/02/2013 20:20

Well they both turned down Dinner tonight. I did a wild rice/bulgar wheat pila that sound very worthy but was bloody delicious. I served it with bakes salmon which DS ate at least! He hated the pilaf but I did manage to get DD to try a few mouthfulls by saying she couldn't have a yogurt unless she did.

Tinkerisdead · 06/02/2013 22:10

Stealth, I just typed science party into pinterest as I've already started thinking of ideas I could steer parties into again. And someone has pinned your science cake via google! I felt quite excited going I know that cake!!!!

stealthsquiggle · 07/02/2013 00:22

Oooh - my cake is famous. Sort of Grin.

Tinkerisdead · 07/02/2013 15:24

I must admit it felt like that. I got very excited to see your cake and flickr name up there.

stealthsquiggle · 07/02/2013 17:08

I just looked - it's not the best photo of that cake (the others have the dry ice in action!). I think I am going to have talk DD into a science party for the next one. DS's was fun, but I have loads of ideas on how I would make it even better and not all of them come from pinterest

Are you thinking of Science for DD1, then? I think you should do jungle first, and recruit Blathers to do the face painting Grin

Tinkerisdead · 07/02/2013 17:32

She has no interest in jungle/animals whatsoever. Im just toying with ideas of make believe parties. Shes quite bookish so i reckon she'd like science. We have an exercise book and if she asks a question we research it and glue into her book. So far we have why does a rainbow come through my window? Why does a badger come out at night? Whats that bird in my garden ( massive greenwoodpecker!) and where does salt come from which had me boiling salty water sauepans dry which she loved.

I owe you a thank you too. After our asthma discussion i booked dd1
And i into asthma clinic. My whooping cough result was negative and they think i have adult onset asthma. Dd has just coughed everynight for as long as i can remember. So we went to asthma clinic and i explained i knew nothing inc how to use the spacer etc. she gave dd a smaller spacer with teddies on- far less intimidating. Taught us how to use both inhalers. Told me the proper dosage for each and what to do in an asthma attack. She also measured peakflow and we're back again on the 18th. I feel so much more empowered. She was disgusted that i'd had to use youtube to learn how to administer it all etc. So thank you xxxx

stealthsquiggle · 07/02/2013 17:52

It does sound like she would enjoy a science party, but I just wonder how much you would have to leave out to make it age-appropriate (not all that much, maybe - but you would need more adults Confused)

I am so glad asthma clinic was useful - I didn't mean to bully you into it and was a bit Blush about it - I have a bit of an ishoo about how long it took my DM to recognise that I was not just being a drama queen and really couldn't breathe (I was 13 when diagnosed, although with hindsight I had some symptoms for a few years before that).

It had actually never occurred to me that they had given your DD an adult inhaler rather than one of the teddy bear ones Shock. GP's can be more than somewhat clueless about it all sometimes. If you can get it under control, it really shouldn't be affecting DD's life at all.

You mentioned that the house is damp - damp and mould are my worst triggers - could it be that is what has made DD worse, and triggered yours? It is definitely something at home that triggers both asthma and my other allergies - I was completely fine and drug free for the whole week in the US, and went downhill fast as soon as I got home, until I ramped the drugs back up and went back to taking Singulair.

Blatherskite · 07/02/2013 18:55

The asthma clinic sounds like it was just what you needed DW. So glad they're helping now.

In similar news, I was discharged from the Haematologist on Friday - but only because whatever's up with me seems to be getting slightly better and they're not sure what it is! I need tonnes more iron apparently as I have very low stores and pasty looking red cells, but rang the docs and she doesn't want to prescribe until she gets the letter from the hospital (which took weeks last time) so I'm on over-the-counter supplements until then. On the plus side, I do feel a lot better so they must be helping.

DD and I made chinese pancakes at baking class today which look good. I'm hoping they might be something we could do on CNY that might actually get eaten

Tinkerisdead · 07/02/2013 19:35

The old house was damp. It was an old victorian villa type house and dd's room had a tint radiator in a huge high ceiling'd room. The size you'd put in a cloakroom/wc. Her pillow ended up with mildew and that prompted us to move as her coughing was horrific. In this house, i've now started up too. The previous tenant had a dog and a cat and i can only assume its that thats setting us off. Cant rip the carpets up though. I steam clean them but it makes no difference. When the rooms are cold we both cough and wheeze terribly and so ive had the heating on at night.

For a science party one of our good friends is a microbiologist and magician (dont ask!) so i reckon he'd relish the chance at helping me do a science party.

Blathers, i dropped dd1 at playschool and they were watching chinese new year on youtube in the classroom. So i explained what you were doing, new food, chopsticks etc etc and she said could she have chinese food? FAINT!!!! we've been invited to an chinese buffet place later in the month with all the godparents so hopefully she'll try lots of stuff but i may just attempt a chinese new year celebration to see if she'd try stuff.

Tinkerisdead · 07/02/2013 19:37

Glad to hear you're on the mend too Blathers but bit wirrying that they still dont know what it is?! Not bery reassuring is it.

Blatherskite · 07/02/2013 20:07

Ooh hoe exciting that she wants to try something! You've got to do it now. Dragons, snakes, chopsticks, chinese-yet-relatively-bland food :)

stealthsquiggle · 07/02/2013 21:12

Buffet places are ideal for trying stuff - you are generally paying next to nothing for DC so no stress about them leaving things.

CNY has to be done - strike while the iron is hot Grin

Blatherskite · 07/02/2013 21:17

I got some duck with pancakes and satay sticks from the Supermarket today. I have spring rolls (that I know DD will eat) and tempura prawns (that I know DS will eat) in the freezer and prawn crackers and fortune cookies in the cupboard. I'm hoping the Chinese takeaway will be open and I'll buy some special fried rice and maybe sweet and sour something then we'll have sesame bananas and ice cream for pudding as that was the only bit of last weeks 'practice dinner' that went down well. I've got plastic snakes, they can have another go with the chopsticks and I might even put some fivers in red envelopes. That'll do right?

Blatherskite · 07/02/2013 21:26

I made Festive golden five-spice chicken, gingery shiitake noodles and stir fried pak choi last week. DD ate some noodles and DS liked the chicken but it wasn't overly popular. DH and I loved it though :)

The banana dessert recipe is here

stealthsquiggle · 07/02/2013 22:27

What sauce are you planning for udon snake noodles?

stealthsquiggle · 07/02/2013 22:33

Re jungles - isn't it fascinating how utterly different DC are? Both mine sleep amongst heaps of animals, take a different one to school every day (well, DS doesn't any more, but he would if he could) and role play with them all the time, so animal - based themes make perfect sense.

Tinkerisdead · 07/02/2013 22:51

My dd sleeps with Lizzie the lizard from park dean caravan sites!

Cuddly toys are blatantly disregarded in this house. My stepmum insists on buying the Xmas Harrods bear each year or numerous cuddliest and they just fester in corners. Dd2 has yet to latch on to an object. I had a security blanket til I was 11!

Right I may attempt some form of Chinese food. Money may work well as an incentive to eat! Oh and she had tea at friends house and my friend said "she didn't like my chicken nuggets". No surprise there!

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