Last word on Mackie's birthday

The extremely grown-up birthday celebrations of last Sunday went a little awry.
We went to a popular vegetarian restaurant on the St.Kilda foreshore for dinner with the birthday kid, the other kid and two mates of the birthday kid, my parents & us.
It was a sensationally sunny day, just perfect.
At this point I am going to start letting off a little steam. No one's fault mind you, it just didn't turn out the way I mentally planned.
There was a Cuban dancing festival of joyousness going on in the courtyard area of the Sea Bath precinct. It was phenomenally packed, it was deafeningly loud. We got to our table in the restaurant upstairs which was in a laser-beam-like explosion of setting sunshine. (nice....but)
We could barely open our eyes, we couldn't hear a word we were saying. The restaurant has a delicious Bain-marie type serving arrangement, which we have enjoyed with the family in the past, but which the "kid's mates" hadn't experienced before. The kids ordered ENORMOUS mango lassis which the birthday kid proceeded to spill all over the table, the vegetarian selection didn't really appeal to one mate who nonetheless had a HUGE plate full in front of him, the other
mate discovered after one mouthful that her tooth was on the verge of falling out, so she couldn't eat.
One mate(who informed us he needs to eat meat EVERYDAY) kept leaving the table in great haste, darting through the crowd to the toilets. "Is he OK?" we shouted across the table after the third or fourth time. Eventually the answer filtered back to us from the other end..he was checking the cricket score on the tv in the toilet!
After consuming about seven mouthfuls each, the eleven year olds got up and left the restaurant to go down to the beach. Meal over.
Pepper ate the serving of bread intended for 4 people, then declared she wanted to go to the beach as well.
"Well" I said to my parents, "lets pay, get the ICECREAM cake and go home. I'll collect the kids & meet you at the car"
Kids were fully clothed in the water, wouldn't get out for fear of "being in trouble", Pepper was watching a busker on her Dad's knee, didn't want to leave. There were about a billion people there so for a few minutes once we started moving, I really though someone had KIDNAPPED my daughter.
Anyway, after some angst we got home. The eleven year olds went to the bedroom to get changed out of wet clothes and proceeded to start a riot, while I lit the candles. Only the "ice-magic" was holding the cake together. There wasn't much holding me together by that stage.
There, I've said it now.
Don't ask me to plan your next significant occasion.