The stakes have definitely been upped on the birthday-party front.
Until now a birthday cake and a few marshmallows have sufficed but when Miss Three became Miss Four she had much grander plans in mind.
''I want a butterfly party,'' she informed me in no uncertain terms.
I took that to mean
a themed table setting with a butterfly cake as the centrepiece.
Having managed to lay my hands on a butterfly tablecloth, paper cups and party hats, I thought I was doing really well.
But a couple of days before the big event Miss Four let me know otherwise.
''Everyone's going to be butterflies,'' she danced around the living room excitedly.
And then it dawned on me that her concept of a ''Butterfly Party'' was a bit more advanced than mine.
Having been to a friend's Princess Party earlier in the year at which all the girls and boys dressed as princesses and princes, she was expecting everyone to flutter through the door like something out of Papillon.
Although the birthday invitations did feature butterflies, nowhere did it mention that they should come dressed as one.
A last-minute trip to the $2 Shop sorted out wings for the girls but then there was the conundrum of what to do for the boys.
Would they want to wear wings too, or would they turn up their noses in disgust at all the glitter and frou-frou?
So another mercy dash - this time to the fabric shop to buy material to make into capes.
Having burnt the midnight oil on the sewing machine and in the kitchen designing butterfly cupcakes, I felt confident I had fulfilled the brief.
But nothing could have prepared me for the onslaught.
Butterfly-winged (including the boys who didn't give the capes a second glance), they stampeded through the house like a herd of baby elephants, pausing only for the
And then before I knew it they were saying their goodbyes, leaving a trail birthday feast before resuming their rampage, and spurred on by sugar and food colouring.of pink icing and half-eaten cupcakes in their wake.
Butterflies by name but not by nature.
I think I will just hire a cage next year and theme it ''Wild Animals''.
