Julia Proverbs: Cat a logue of chaos

Miss Four is no more.
We have a big 5-year-old in the house - and don't we know it.
Who would have thought that turning five would be such a big ordeal?
Freshly hatched 5-year-olds are like the debutantes with all the fanfare that accompanies their coming of age.
In the months prior to the event she was invited to two Chipmunks and two Lollipops parties. The bar had been set.
Opting for something different, I bravely decided to host the party at home the Saturday after her birthday, which fell mid-week.
Her chosen theme - A Pink Pussycat Party. Sounding more like something that should be held at the Playboy Mansion, I sourced a dozen pairs of cat ears, booked the face-painter and downloaded Tom Jones' What's New Pussycat (strangely none of my friends would admit to owning it).
I also decided that we should paint her room pink, have friends over for afternoon tea on her actual birthday, go on a special Mummy and Miss Five date to the hot pools and theme all her party plates.
The pink wall paint came out mauve, Miss Five and I ended up arguing at the hot pools and I was up until midnight on the eve of the party, punching pipe-cleaner whiskers into paper plates.
Miss Two decided to contribute by throwing a 39C temperature.
After a precautionary trip to the doctor and the blowing up of cat balloons (half of which turned out to be rabbits if you looked closely enough) we were set to go. And then the heavens opened.
A word of advice for girls' parties: If there is any chance of being confined to indoors, choose a quiet theme. Like fairies or princesses.
I held on to my eardrums for dear life as nine over-excited girls meowed at volume and the two token boys looked on with a mixture of fear and bemusement.
If this was Miss Five's "coming out" she was doing little to impress the eligible bachelors.
We held back the feisty felines for as long as we could but it was not until their plates were loaded that the noise abated to a low purr.
But unlike cats, who like to sleep off a good meal, they discarded their carefully crafted plates (which not one of them expressed any excitement over) and resumed meowing, the pitch and tone heightened by sugar and food colouring.
A game of pin-the-tail-on-the-cat brought brief respite, as did the appearance of the two birthday cakes (a long story that I won't go into here). And then, one by one, they slinked off home, taking their caterwauling with them.
Oh well, you only turn five once.
Thank goodness.