This is going to be a very long post. I work sort of hard for birthdays, and so I want to capture all of the details. Seeing my kids happy on their birthdays is one of my most favorite things, and Mary was very, very happy on her birthday.
First of all, a just a few things I love about five year old Mary.
- She has the cutest voice. I mean, her little voice and lisp are the cutest things EVER.
- This goes along with the first thing, but Mary took charm lessons in her pre-earth life. She has these little mannerisms and facial expressions that are straight out of a child-of-charm book. She’s been this way all of her life, and her charm has only grown with each year.
- Mary loves to learn! She picks up things pretty quickly, and she always has an eager attitude about learning more.
- Mary is very affectionate and loving. She writes “I love you cards” to the loved ones in her life frequently on her own volition. They melt their recipients’ hearts.
- Mary has the capacity to be purely joyful. When she is excited and happy, her emotions shine through in every part of her body. She jumps, skips, laughs, grins, and hops up and down. It is so beautiful to see Mary happy.
On her birthday morning, Mary woke up beaming with excitement and came smilingly downstairs to discover her birthday balloons. I had gotten up early to make her the breakfast she requested: salmon, peas, and rice. I also baked her an apple sharlotka cake so we could sing to her over breakfast. She was radiant, happy, and so cute throughout it all.
After we sang to her, she opened her sewing box before my mom had to whisk Lydia to school. Mary had two requests for her birthday: a sewing box and high heeled shoes like the ones her neighbor friend wears. She wanted a sewing box because, as she declared with her hands on her hips, “Every girl in this family has a sewing box except for me!”
I didn’t get her the shoes. However, she loved her sewing box! One of my favorite things about Mary is how adorable she is when she is happy. She says thank-you so enthusiastically and practically dances with appreciation while she grins and sometimes jumps for joy. She displayed this kind of adorableness when she opened her gifts, which is one of the reason I got her more than one. I just looooove to watch Happy Mary.
After breakfast, I gave her a break from piano and let her play with some of her gifts. I also let her watch Fantasia with Ammon. Ammon is learning to watch TV!! Glory be and Hallelujah.
Anyhoo, after her carefree morning, I let Mary open almost all of the rest of her presents before serving her her lunch request of broccoli cheddar soup. I made a bunch Tuesday night so that lunch would be a breeze, but sadly, she did not like the leftovers as much as when I first made the soup. Both girls have been getting really picky about leftovers recently. But even if she didn’t like the soup, Mary was still in a great mood when she left for kindergarten.
At kindergarten, she got to be the line leader, display everything she stuffed (and I mean stuffed) into the special show-and-tell box, and distribute unicorn-ring cupcakes to everyone.
While Mary was at kindergarten, I called the Bean Museum to confirm that they were planning on Mary’s party. To my horror, I learned that they expected us to come to them and that there was no way they could send someone to us because they had another out-of-house show at the exact same time.
I panicked. I had called the director and spoken with her directly about the party, so I was shocked at this development. After talking with Abe, I decided to text parents and get permission to drive the kids there. Then I called the director back to let her know we would be coming to the in-house show.
After we picked up Lydia, we returned home and cleaned house for the birthday party. Luckily, I had purposefully scheduled the party at an inconvenient time, so not many kids were a) coming and b) in need of drivers. Abe and I took all of the kids between our cars, and we met up with another little girl, Jakely, (Mary’s best little kindergarten girlfriend) there.
After all of the back and forth between the director and me, I could not believe it when we realized the museum had no idea we were coming and did not have a show planned…!!!!!!!! At that point, I started to honestly wonder whether the director was on drugs. I had just talked to her about the show two hours earlier–twice!!
Fortunately, the guy in charge of the show was able to pull off a spectacular, spur-of-the minute performance. He was absolutely delightful, and all of the grown-ups enjoyed the show as much as the kids. He was a tortoise enthusiast and a whistler extraordinaire, and our favorite part was when he opened up the Q&A by explaining what questions were and what stories were. The kids were supposed to ask questions, not tell him stories. In spite of his numerous, hilarious examples and his detailed instructions, one of the little neighbor girls could not help herself. She raised her hand, and when the instructor called on her she said,
“I….I….I….”
“Is this a question or a story?” he asked.
Breathlessly, she blurted, “It’s a really quick story!!! IoncesawascorpianinSt.George!!”
Abe and I thought that was so funny.
Anyway, Mary was in her element because the instructor made a big deal about her birthday and let her have triple the turns of anyone else in the game they were playing, and then she got to choose what animal to pet. To our surprise, she picked the snake over the cute tortoise and the interesting dragon lizard. I chose not to pet it.
Then we came home to the piñata, cake, and presents. When we got home, we saw our new neighbor kids outside and invited them to the party. A family of six just moved in. That means we have SIXTEEN CHILDREN on our little cul-de-sac. If you count the house just perpendicular to the cul-de-sac, we have NINETEEN!! And that’s not even going down the street in either direction. We feel so blessed.
So with the new additions to the party, we had a lot of kids to liven up the piñata and everything else. Mary got twice as many turns as anyone else on the piñata, which was fine because her swats barely did anything to the zebra. One of the big kids ended up batting it down.
After the piñata and pizza, Mary excitedly opened the rest of her presents, including a pogo stick from Clark, Swathi, and Soren that was the hit of the party for the rest of the evening.
Mary could hardly be convinced to go to bed after that. She was flying so high and so out of her mind with happiness and excitement. Even though birthdays are hard and stressful on the planning/execution end for the grown-ups, it was so worth it to see Mary’s joy. I love this little, over-the-top cute, charming, fun-loving and smart FIVE year old. She is a bright light in our lives.