Anyone with kids will know exactly what I mean when I talk about the pressure that come with organising their birthday parties.
To start with you have the expectation of your child to contend with.
Let's be honest all young children do not understand that most parents have to budget carefully to get by.
So to them money is no object and they therefore expect their birthday party will feature some really cool if not expensive games and treats.
In addition to this you have to consider their peers, the other kids in their class at school.
What I mean is this, none of us want our kids labelled as having cheapskate parents who throw dud parties right? Can you imagine the pressure they could face, the possibility of name calling or even worse they could end up being bullied? I know we as grown ups are not meant to care what others think.
But the truth is we do care.
For most of us projecting the right image and managing the way others perceive us is very important.
So what does my wonky rocket title have to do with all this? Well a few years ago when my son was five years old we where really struggling financially.
This meant putting on a party for him was going to be particularly challenging as money was really tight.
Determined not to let our little boy down we decided we where going to give him a party he would never forget.
As he was into a particular space character from a movie that was popular at the time we threw him a spaceman themed party.
My partner went to the library and got a book about party games.
We simply took popular games and re-worked them to give them a twist that matched our theme.
For example instead of pass-the-parcel we played pass-the-asteroid.
We decorated our family room with as much silver foil and techno looking bits and bobs as we could find (including a cheap external hard drive we had left from an old PC).
The highlight of the party was a cake we made ourselves.
We made a round sponge base and a couple of sponge shapes that enabled us to create a rocket shape standing on a platform.
This was then covered in melted chocolate and we then added candy shapes to create windows and a door.
The end result left us a bit nervous as to be honest it looked really wonky and not at all like the ones in the store.
The response from the kids was overwhelming and the loved it all especially the cake.
My son is a young teenager now but even to this day he and his class mates still remember that party fondly.