Sickness and celebrations
I’ve been sick and miserable all week. Lousy timing, what with my fever of 101.5 on Wednesday, which happened to be my daughter’s birthday. She was very sweet about letting me rest, and of course I roused myself as much as I could for her birthday.
My friend Laura came over on Tuesday to help me clean (thank you!) for Em’s birthday party on Friday. Later that afternoon it became apparent that I wasn’t getting better, I was getting worse, and there was no way I was going to be able to clean the tub, vacuum, etc. and get everything ready in time. Rather than kill myself trying, I called Brenda Jenkins of BJSunshine Cleaning. She was able to come over Thursday and hit the high spots for me for a reasonable price. Whew!
As usual, RSVPs were spotty. We knew we’d have somewhere between 5 and 11 people. The total was nine. The kids were very sweet and had a great time. We have a wii, which was a great novelty for them, so they had fun with that and with the swingset out back which my husband and his father built some years ago. While we often complain about the house not being big enough to store all our hobby equipment, the girls commented on how roomy things were and how big Em’s room was. Nice perspective.
There was pizza, pin the tail on the donkey, and a pinata. One of the girls was especially happy about the pinata and told me about when she was young (ha!) in Mexico and would make pinatas with her grandmother. The girls had a pinata song which I didn’t know about. They seemed really happy to share this, and sang it while they beat the tar out of an effigy of Curious George. We hung it kind of low, so the first few girls pretty much killed it. It didn’t burst, so they made my husband hold it up over his head and shake it so they could scramble for candy.
After the pinata, we came in for cupcakes and gifts (mostly clothing in green, Em’s favorite color), then the girls went home. I want to give props here to Jet for loaning us folding chairs and for hitting Target for some party supplies for me when I couldn’t get out. I also want to give props to my mom for loaning us more folding chairs and for driving home kids when we realized we had too many to fit in two cars. Double props because one of the girls didn’t know her street address or how to get there, and her relatives on the phone only spoke Spanish. Nice work, Mom.
It was a great success, and a reminder of how far we’ve come. It was also reassuring to hear that some of the girls like some of the same things Em likes (like Sid the Science Kid) which we thought might be more babyish than usual. It sounded like they liked these things, but maybe were getting to an age where they didn’t think they should be spreading it around, but it was okay in our house. Heh.
Okay, now it’s time for me to take yet another nap. I think I fought back the sickness enough for the preparations and party, but now I have a lot of lost time to make up for in terms of getting well. Especially since Em and I have a field trip with her scout troop tomorrow to the Lazy 5 ranch. A parent’s work is never done!