In the month of April 50% of my family has a birthday.
This is pretty much the month after which we go broke for a while. True story.
As a family of six we do a lot of birthdays at home. We don't live near any family, so usually it's just us and a cake and presents. We'll try to go somewhere fun, do something fun, but we don't do the whole HAVE ALL THE KIN OVER FOR BIRTHDAY thing because well - ours live hundreds of miles away.
We've been lucky to have Aunties Suzie and Debbie here on the rare occasion, but generally it's just US. For that reason when you get to school and finally have lots of friends, we tend to DO IT UP.
The girl chose to have her party at an indoor play land called Everland which is pretty freaking amazing. She'd been there before, as a pre-schooler with her Daddy while I was at work. We invited her whole class and the girl scouts and waited to see what would happen.
To say that she and her friends had a ridiculous time might be the understatement of the universe.
What was great though was getting to see her with other children. Not her family, just children who know her in ways I don't ever get to see - that SCHOOL version of Julia that isn't the home version of Julia but is probably on the path to being the person she'll become in ways I haven't fathomed yet.
It's also sort of enlightening to see how other people react to your child. Watching other children, seeing how THEY see her. I'm not neutral. There is a certain amount of "Oh wow they DO like her" that I think other parents feel too. You want your kids to be liked, you want them to be around people who are good to them. I felt really good seeing them all playing with her so joyfully.
We had a choice, we could have goodie bags and a character present OR skip both. Well goodie bags are just crap no one wants in their house. Small toys that break, stickers that end up where they should not, etc. No parent wants goodie bags. MAKE NOTE YOUNGER PARENTS. NO ONE WANTS THIS.
We decided to have Elsa come out, thinking she would come out and sing Happy Birthday and do a photo op.
WOW were we wrong.
She came out and every little girl in the place LOST THEIR MIND. They started blasting LET IT GO - and while all the little girls belted it out word for word, Elsa grabbed Julia and starts twirling her around the room. At some points she grabs every other girl and also dances and twirls them.
It was possibly one of the most exhuberantly joyful things I have ever seen in person.
Elsa stayed for photo ops afterward - you can see she's a bit exhausted. The girls are completely amazed if you can't tell.
She will never be six again. She will never have another Kindergarten birthday party. It wasn't cheap but I'm so glad we did it. Watching her joy and excitement was worth it.
Every once in a while, I think it's ok for all your dreams to come true. Especially if it's your birthday.
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