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Ruthie's party
Mar. 28th, 2011 10:55 amRuthie's birthday party was this past weekend. I had it at Michael's, which is an arts-and-crafts chain store. For $50 you get the use of their party room and one staffperson for two hours. They have a variety of different crafts you can choose for the party activity -- we chose decorating t-shirts -- and you pay for the materials for that, which in our case came to about $20, would have been slightly more if not for a mix-up (see below), but still quite reasonable in cost.
It was my first time having a kid's birthday party somewhere other than our house. I dithered about it, but the fact is that with a March birthday I just can't plan to have the party in our backyard (like I have done with Isaac's June birthday). Actually, since we had such a small number of kids, I probably could have done it in our house, but our apt is so small. Anyway, I think it worked out pretty well. It wasn't too expensive and the kids had a good time.
We had a total of five kids. Ruthie has not really formed particularly close friendships with any of her current preschool classmates, perhaps because the majority of kids in her class are boys, and most of the girls are a lot younger than her (I mean, like, 3 ½ is a lot younger than 5, in terms of social interaction). But there is one girl she likes a lot, so we invited her, and then we had Isaac, of course, and my nephew Baz, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
orbitalmechanic's daughter. Plus parental units and our babysitter and, at sort of the last minute, my college friend David who was in from NYC for a brief visit. I suspect that my kids will always know him as "David who slept on our couch that time." ;)
( details on the little mix-up we had around party supplies )
Anyway, so the kids decorated their t-shirts and ate lots of chips, and then we had cake, and then somehow we ended up doing the opening-presents thing even though I've personally been entirely converted to the "not opening presents during the party" philosophy. But somehow with such a small number of kids it seemed natural, especially since Ruthie's one preschool friend was really anxious to see Ruthie open what she had brought. Ruthie got a lot of good stuff, including three dresses -- she is really into wearing dresses lately, and one of them was a fancy "princess" dress which she insisted on wearing to the playground the next day and wore while she was doing the monkey bars -- and a Playmobil brand toy dragon, which she really likes, and sand art and a bunch of different coloring stuff and, uh, I forget but a lot of other good stuff. ;) So she was happy. And I was exhausted. ;) Did I mention I stayed up past midnight the night before, working on her cake and wrapping her presents? Did I mention that I made TWO cakes for her birthday this year -- one to take to preschool on the actual day, and one for the party? Did I mention that making two cakes in three days for one kid is completely insane? Never Again! ;) Fortunately, next year her birthday is on a Saturday so it won't be as much of an issue.
That evening, as I was putting the kids to bed, I reminded them: "tomorrow is Sunday. Sunday morning is the ONLY morning of the whole week that I don't have to get up early for something. So please, let me sleep late, okay?" And I'm VERY happy to report that this worked!!! They got up on Sunday morning and went in the other room and played quietly together and I slept until after 9am!!!! It was glorious. They apparently spent a long time working together on a drawing of Christmas Bumblebees.
Sometimes I feel wistful about no longer having a baby, and the old "I'll never get to be pregnant again" thing still makes me sad from time to time. But then there are mornings like that, that make me SO happy they are growing up! :)
It was my first time having a kid's birthday party somewhere other than our house. I dithered about it, but the fact is that with a March birthday I just can't plan to have the party in our backyard (like I have done with Isaac's June birthday). Actually, since we had such a small number of kids, I probably could have done it in our house, but our apt is so small. Anyway, I think it worked out pretty well. It wasn't too expensive and the kids had a good time.
We had a total of five kids. Ruthie has not really formed particularly close friendships with any of her current preschool classmates, perhaps because the majority of kids in her class are boys, and most of the girls are a lot younger than her (I mean, like, 3 ½ is a lot younger than 5, in terms of social interaction). But there is one girl she likes a lot, so we invited her, and then we had Isaac, of course, and my nephew Baz, and
orbitalmechanic's daughter. Plus parental units and our babysitter and, at sort of the last minute, my college friend David who was in from NYC for a brief visit. I suspect that my kids will always know him as "David who slept on our couch that time." ;)( details on the little mix-up we had around party supplies )
Anyway, so the kids decorated their t-shirts and ate lots of chips, and then we had cake, and then somehow we ended up doing the opening-presents thing even though I've personally been entirely converted to the "not opening presents during the party" philosophy. But somehow with such a small number of kids it seemed natural, especially since Ruthie's one preschool friend was really anxious to see Ruthie open what she had brought. Ruthie got a lot of good stuff, including three dresses -- she is really into wearing dresses lately, and one of them was a fancy "princess" dress which she insisted on wearing to the playground the next day and wore while she was doing the monkey bars -- and a Playmobil brand toy dragon, which she really likes, and sand art and a bunch of different coloring stuff and, uh, I forget but a lot of other good stuff. ;) So she was happy. And I was exhausted. ;) Did I mention I stayed up past midnight the night before, working on her cake and wrapping her presents? Did I mention that I made TWO cakes for her birthday this year -- one to take to preschool on the actual day, and one for the party? Did I mention that making two cakes in three days for one kid is completely insane? Never Again! ;) Fortunately, next year her birthday is on a Saturday so it won't be as much of an issue.
That evening, as I was putting the kids to bed, I reminded them: "tomorrow is Sunday. Sunday morning is the ONLY morning of the whole week that I don't have to get up early for something. So please, let me sleep late, okay?" And I'm VERY happy to report that this worked!!! They got up on Sunday morning and went in the other room and played quietly together and I slept until after 9am!!!! It was glorious. They apparently spent a long time working together on a drawing of Christmas Bumblebees.
Sometimes I feel wistful about no longer having a baby, and the old "I'll never get to be pregnant again" thing still makes me sad from time to time. But then there are mornings like that, that make me SO happy they are growing up! :)
