Anyone can host a kids’ party, but it doesn’t take too much effort to make your child’s party a fabulous event which will be the talk of the playground for the year to come.

Dear Polly,

Okay, you’ve turned one, and here is the joke of the night. I’ve cooked pasta, and deposited it in one of your Bunnykins bowls on the off chance that you might eat something that is fed to you, rather than insisting on feeding yourself. I’ve cut up the penne and doused it in bolognaise. For a while, you let me spoon you bits, particularly if I favour the meat over the pasta, and then, again showing an independence that is well in advance of any actual ability to be independent, you scoop up the penne in your fists.

Blowing candles out on a birthday cake, toasting marshmallows over a camp fire, swishing sparklers through the air on New Year’s Eve, Sunday lunch with the extended family, fish and chips on Friday night …