I think you are perfectly right about birthday parties. The OPC phenomenon (Other People's Children) is hard to bear at the best of times, but kids' birthday parties - awful. You put such effort into organisation, decoration and nice food, and all you get is screaming, fighting, destruction, no food eaten, and a big, big headache. I think you'll get far more pleasure out of his big day by putting of the inevitable for a year or so - and he'll be happy to have a calm mummy.

For #1's birthday this year (7 yrs old) we invited two friends, one extra parent for help, took them on a trip to see some caves and then had a picnic in a park nearby. Simple, clean, relatively quick. And we were still exhausted. So follow your instincts and keep it simple for yourself for as long as you can.

Good luck with the headache.