Frodo's Birthday

Frodo started to stir at about 06:15 this morning.

I say he was stirring. Novelist Supermum insists that he wasn't and that we could have had another hour in bed, but somebody was too excited about playing with Frodo's presents.

I got up quickly, lifted the Dalek and control unit from out of it's box, switched both on and steered the Dalek into Frodo's room. "You will obey the Daleks! Obey! Obey!"
"Daddy!" "On the floor!" "In my room!"
"What is it Frodo?"
"A Dalek!"
"We are Supreme Beings!" "Seek! Locate! Annihilate!"
"Daddy, that's from Dr Who!" shouts Samwise from his room.

Soon both of the hobbits were in Frodo's bedroom, jumping up and down and pointing excitedly whilst the Dalek paraded around in front of them.

They discovered that the Supreme Beings plans to conquer the Universe could be thwarted by standing on a rug, that's thicker than the carpet.

We moved downstairs. Most of the presents were opened by 07:30. Soon a Cyberman and a Tardis (together with a "The Doctor" action figure that belongs to Samwise) were helping form a Dr Who Universe on the living room floor.

Frodo had breakfast, then played with the Dalek a little more. We usually allow the hobbit who's birthday it is to give a little gift to the other hobbit (to compensate for all the attention not being on them) so Samwise got a Peppa Pig DVD box set from Frodo. He also got a smaller Dalek to play with too (this used to belong to Frodo).

We were up far too early, so Novelist Supermum and Frodo went back to bed for a bit, before we opened the remaining presents - mostly musical/percussion instruments that I'd bought from a local music shop.

Onto the party at 13:00. This went well and all the kids who came had a great time for 2 hours or so at the Aztec themed play centre. Samwise wouldn't stick to the toddlers section, and he climbed to the top of the play area a few times. He went down both snake slides, and at one point I saw him happily wandering through a maze of stalactites and stalagmites before crossing a lava flow by himself.

Following the food and Birthday cake the staff let everybody have a go at the Ball Shooting gallery. This is two rows of air powered cannons which one child aims at the targets, whilst the others load up with foam balls, that are blasted out immediately after loading. Loads of fun trying to knock down Quetzacoatl.

Home again to see Grandma Gandalf and eat more of the giant football pitch Birthday cake before bedtime. Everybody absolutely knackered, and the hobbits went straight off to sleep at around 18:30 - although Frodo was disturbed by Auntie Crystal Healer who called to sing "Happy Birthday" to him down the phone.

Frodo has 14 extra presents, which he's going to open over the next few days.

He's definitely had the Birthday that he's been looking forward to, and went to bed an extremely happy hobbit. Only 365 days to the next one.

Little Blister called to say that she's visiting us at the weekend, although she's got a free ticket for a Rolling Stones gig so she can't stay on Sunday night as originally planned.

Just nodded off at the keyboard. It's now way past my bedtime and I'm well knackered so time for bed...