Clowns and carrot cake

We were surrounded. Screaming, shouting, running, bursting, waving, dancing, wrestling, kids. It was the wonderful Morgan's sixth birthday over the weekend.
Ka, myself and the rest of the Leckies and McGarvas went along to our neice's special party in the church hall on Sunday. Around 26 small children in their best party gear hesitantly moved into the hall, after being delivered by parents and greeted at the door by Morgan and her Dad, Steven, who handed each a sticky name label. After the initial disappointment of not being assigned a name tag I went through to the hall and started taking photos of the party goings on, which were largely centred on a female clown hired for the occasion.
The clown was called Giggles and used to be a Procurator Fiscal. One hell of a career change, I thought, she must have wanted a break from the silly costumes and funny wigs. Giggles didn't have a wig. She wasn't even wearing a red nose!? How can a clown NOT have a red nose?!
Giggles spent the next three hours talking through a headset microphone at the kids gathered round, singing songs, playing games and basically controlling most of the kids extremely well in the potentially excitable party environment.
For three hours the clown's amped up voice went on. Kids sitting, shouting up at her. I wondered if this was the kind of thing I'd have to get used to as a father to be. Kids birthday parties. Bunches of yelling kids, chattering mothers and an over excitable Procurator Fiscal who thinks she can get away with being a clown without a red nose.
Only two of the many Dads who delivered kids actually stuck around for the party, the rest were Mums eithering talking away at each other or sitting, quietly watching their small child being entertained. Unfortunately I got bored halfway through and entertained myself by nicking marshmallows, eating carrot cake and talking to Colin McG about The A-Team and The Karate Kid movies. We took care not to speak too loudly though as you ran the risk of Giggles pulling you on to the dancefloor and giving you a job to do, a fate which befell some of the louder gabbing mothers.
Ka and myself once discussed the possability of kids entertainment for a living. Together with Colin and Jillian, who were both members of the Hopscotch travelling theatre group, we could make a bomb - and there wouldn't be any of this namby pamby everybody wins at pass the parcel or musical bumps mentality!
Giggles kept asking us viewers, sitting around the hastily seated kids, who was the last to get their bum on the floor during musical bumps. No matter how much I kept shouting out to Giggles she kept blatantly ignoring me, insisting it to be a draw when it so obviously wasn't. I had been watching. I pinpointed her in the small crowd of kids from my chair at the side. "Her with the pigtails!" I was yelling. "She's out! O - U - T, out, I tell ye!"
I'm looking forward to hosting the kids parties. The kids will get a giant bag of smarties to gee them up, a bouncy castle, if I'm feeling extravagant, and a run about the the back garden (even if it's raining!). Maybe the odd pinata up on the washing line... and there'll be no politically correct and boringly fair clowns! There'll be a winner at pass the parcel. The rest of the losing kids can go home bubbling if they want. If it turns out my child's going to be a bubbler then it'll do him good. It's best he, or she, learns how to be a good sport in life as early as possible and understands that sometimes they'll end up a loser. Just like their old Dad!... That didn't sound right...