"Hey, say sorry to my friend and be nice!"
"Let's not jump with Little Mother. Let's go off by ourselves."
"This is the worst birthday ever. Ladybug is taking off with my friends."
"Well, who am I supposed to play with?"
"I'm bored."
"Why isn't there more drink?"
"Can't we jump on the Velcro jumper and pay more money?"
"When is the pizza getting here?"
The momma wanted to crawl under a rock. And stay there. And eat all the pizza herself. Luckily her good friend had her back. "Come on kids! It's present time!" The mama slunk in the back and watched as Katie Sue distracted them into good relations once again.
"Katie, please tell me they get over this stuff. Please tell me I am not going to have to deal with this for the rest of their growing up time."
"Well, we still still do it. We still deal with the same things. There is always someone at church who is super sensitive and someone who stirs the pot. We are trying to figure out who we feel comfortable with. Its just that we learn to handle it better. You are just teaching skills to handle it better. Over and over you will say, "you may see it that way, but that is not how others see it. Your vision is a little bit skewed."
The momma felt a bit more patient at that point as she realized that people skills are a life long learning process and these little ones were just beginning their journey.
Time for cake. Nine young ladies jumping on trampolines were devoured before they could even be recorded in their cuteness.
In a rare moment of creativity, the momma filled Little Mother's dreams of a trampoline cake by cutting out shapes from fruit roll-ups and laying them over doughnuts. 
Though no one ooohed and ahhhed like the mom would have liked for her own gratification, they did eat them... quickly, leaving no little crumbs to record. Ah Birthdays. I am toying with the idea of making each birthday a "serve others day" where they pick a service to offer others. Or perhaps the birthday person should just pick an experience for the family to share. So much me me me is not healthy for any of us. I wonder if I could pull it off with girls already full of expectations.
Your creative moments are not rare the way I see it- fantastic idea! I have thought the same thing about birthdays- if you get it figured out before Cami develops expectations- let me know.
ReplyDeleteI always knew the "mean girlness" was going to come, but I expected it to wait until atleast Jr. High, not First Grade! I hope the party turned out successful regardless, and I hope she had a magical day despite a few setbacks. If nothing else, the donut trampolines are darling!
ReplyDeleteWe do friend birthdays every other year, it's too much stress for me to pull of three full-blown parties every year (not to mention dealing with all that you mentioned), so odd years are for friends, and even birthdays are for family. So far it's worked great!