After the party
I have survived the birthday party. My voice is hoarse and I have no motivation to do anything else for the rest of the day, but I have survived. My four kids and six guests attended this party. Howard was in the grip of a scripting jag and was hidden away in his office. Or maybe he was just hiding. Trying to keep 10 kids happy during The Opening of Presents is a huge challenge. Patches did not understand why all the presents were for Gleek. He cried mightily over this unfairness. One of the guests clearly would have preferred to keep the gift she brought. She was ready to cry. In desperation I hollered “Cake & Ice Cream!” then stashed all the opened gifts away under a blanket for the remaining half hour of party time. There was chaos, there was joy, fun was had, everyone went home happy. Mission accomplished.
The party was short (only 90 minutes) because I’m not insane. We decorated butterfly wings cut out of posterboard. Then the girls all wore their wings for some of the games. Naturally they got to take home the wings. Kiki also carefully drew pictures of My Little Ponies and gave one to each girl. Those also went home with the guests. The third take home item was a My Little Pony paper doll that I printed off the internet. Note the similarity here, I gave the guests only paper to take home and they were delighted. I am so sneaky. This party cost $1 for the shiny stickers we put on the butterfly wings, everything else I had on hand already. Add in $2 for the gifts that my other kids gave to Gleek, $1 for the cake mix, and $1.50 for frosting. The total cost of Gleek’s birthday comes to $5.50 and she is the happiest little girl I’ve ever seen. Having a big birthday party has been a big dream of hers for almost a year. Today her dreams came true, she got to be the center of a huge crowd of friends and loved it.
Her actual birthday will be next week. She’ll get to pick what we have for dinner, open her one remaining gift from her grandparents, and be five years old. There won’t be any more cake. Between my birthday cheesecakes and her birthday cake all of us have eaten way too many sweet things. The quiet celebration on her actual birthday will be much more to my taste, but today she got to have the birthday party that she wanted. All is good.