It's now about T minus 48hrs until the house will be filled with the shrieks, cries and sugar induced craziness of 3 and 4 year olds. My youngest boy is turning 3 tomorrow and his obligatory party is Saturday. It's coming has been like the countdown to Santa’s arrival, "Only two more sleeps until my party!" As anyone who has been to one of these before could tell you, there is no accurate way to describe what you are up for until you experiernce it for the first time.

Then someone starts to get an indication that something might be about to happen. The announcement goes out that the first kids have started to arrive but everything is still under control. The floor is still relatively free of soft drink and lolly snakes while the clouds that seem to loom over our house have yet to release their outdoors inhibiting rain.

After a while things start get a little wilder though manageable as more kids and their parents arrive.

But then it happens. The party reaches critical mass. For 3 and 4 year olds this is approximately 7 or 8 kids.

It's at this point that the screaming, shrieking and crying begins. But wait there's more. If you have girls attending the party, we'll also throw in some glass shattering squealing that only girls can produce. Mix this with about half a kilogram of lollies per child and you have an uncontrollable bedlam that swarms around the house, the backyard and anywhere else they can get their sticky, chocolate covers fingers into.

Once the party reaches this stage there is only one thing that will stop them. All of your cries for peace and your shouts for calm will surely go unheeded until you bring out the birthday cake.

I don't know why it is, maybe it's the hypnotic effect of the candles or maybe the promise of yet more sugar to further fuel their psychotic rampaging but the sight of that cake emerging from the kitchen will stop them cold.

Well at least for the 2 mins it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" and collect their slice of cake.

So as you're taking it easy this Saturday morning, sitting back drinking your second cup of coffee or sorting through the 10 kilos of Saturday morning paper to decide which 6 pages you actually want to read, think of me and what I'll be going through.

I'll be the one you see on Saturday afternoon walking around Woollies in a daze looking for something that will get semi digested red lolly snakes out of the curtains and the carpet and the cat's tail.