One of the hardest things about being a mother is, and I hate to say this, the judgement. Now, when I say that, I don’t mean that my kid is judging everything I do or that I judge other children, it’s that other mothers judge me and how I treat my kid. I realise that, obviously, there’s really nothing I can do about it. It’s just one of those situations where you have to suck it up and ignore what’s going on around you, but that doesn’t mean you’re immune to it. Even though I know it doesn’t matter what they think of me, I still care. And worse than all of that, I still want to impress them. All of this has made me wonder if all the effort I’m putting into finding a kick-butt venue to have Claire’s sixth birthday party is really worth it.

I’ve been thinking about ideas for this for literally months, been listening carefully to her talking about what her friends do for their birthdays, and I think I’ve decided the best thing to do would be to go ice skating here in Melbourne. When we went to America in the summer Claire tried a bit of ice skating with her cousins and absolutely loved it, but that was quite a few months ago now. I think she’d really love to do it again and love to show her friends a few tricks, but it’s all a bit of a gamble. I’ve done a bit of research and it turns out that one of the really big ice skating places, the one in Docklands, also does kids party venues, so that would all be absolutely perfect. In any case, it would be a lot less work for me at the end of the day.

Even though it all sounds good on paper, I’m worried it won’t be a success. I feel like if someone falls over or gets injured, it will all be Claire’s or my fault. I want Claire’s party to be the best it possibly can be, but for as much my sake as hers, and that’s terrible.