It wasn’t hard to spot the birthday girl: she was in the one in pink with several hair braids, a painted face, glitter in her hair, lipstick, painted nails, flowery “tattoos” and 2 crowns on. By the end of the day, you had to work harder to find her because all the girls looked like that. “Hair braiding & face painting” turned out to be this nice lady with her daughter and 2 helpers who painted their faces, applied all the tattoos they had skin for, painted their nails, gave them bracelets & necklaces, put temporary color in their hair, and did Jamaican hair wraps and braids. I applaud Gaynor’s internet sleuthing skills for finding this woman- she was a huge hit- even the boys were lovin’ it. Simultaneously they were being entertained by Professor Playtime (another internet find!) who had them launching foam rockets, making giant bubbles, playing with a parachute, and enjoying the stash of toys he brought with him.
Lauren requested ice cream cone cupcakes (which I hadn’t seen since 3rd grade), and Gaynor’s sister baked ‘em up and arranged them on faux presents. It was a cute and tasty centerpiece. We did at least gorge on pizza, fruit, and finger sandwiches before we tackled the cupcakes and ice cream cake.
All the kids played amazingly well together and it was at least a good hour into the party before I saw tears or heard whining. Even then both were short lived.
Speaking of tears…I may, or may not, have mentioned in a previous post that my daughter lacks spatial awareness of any kind. She frequently drops things on the dog or a cat, walks right in front of oncoming shopping carts or herds of pedestrians, trips over her own toys and walks into walls/signs/counters/opening car doors. For those who may doubt this, or think it’s just part of being a toddler: Lauren & Amanda have this nice play structure in their backyard that has a tower, slide, 2 swings & trapeze bar. All playset manufacturers will tell you that you are supposed to have 6’ of clearance on all sides- I presume so kids can get around other kids swinging. This is wasted on Ten. What does my kid do? Walk right in front of one of the boys swinging and get a sturdy Nike right in the middle of the back sending her face first into the rubber mulch. She wasn’t hurt at all- mostly just scared- and after some wailing all was right in her world again. She went back out to play, and I reassured the boy who caught her that she was just fine, it was an accident, and it was not his fault. We all laughed that that would teach her…she wouldn’t be doing that again. We spoke too soon. A half hour or so later, Ten is playing on the tower with some of the other kids, and I’m pushing Lauren on the swings. What does my kid do? Yes, again, she walks right in front of Lauren. But this time she wasn’t so lucky. I had just given Lauren a substantial push, and on the upswing, Tenley took a knee to the left temple. It hurt her and she doubled over, but not far enough: Lauren’s feet caught her in the shoulder and head on the backswing. Now she was on the ground doing the silent scream. I caught the swing, and having arrested Lauren’s motion went to pull my child up from the heap she was lying in surrounded by an open mouthed crowd of grade school onlookers. As I picked up the now loudly screaming child, I noticed Lauren was crying too. I was about to try to pick her up too when Scott came up to rescue his birthday princess. No permanent damage was done: just a cut on the temple and a bruise on the shoulder. So, apparently she didn’t learn.... and there is no way all toddlers can be this clueless- the human race would be dying out or severly brain damaged! I won’t even elaborate on the fact that later she fell off a chair and whacked the back of her head on oak cabinets.
We were, as usual, the last to leave. We always overstay our welcome there by at least an hour, partly because we love visiting them and don’t get to see them very often, and partly because we always dread the drive home- which is foolish because it always takes half the time to get home than it did to get there!
It was a great party- a huge success! I only hope I can pull off Tenley’s next month with such flair!
2 comments:
Sounds like a great party. But poor Ten!
I'm glad to see (yesterday) that she is doing just fine. :)
Shell
Poor Ten! It'll be a party to remember for sure.
I also have very little depth/spatial perception- so I was/ am just like Ten. I still run into things because I don't know they're so close, parallel parking is a NIGHTMARE for me, and I think I got hit more by the softball as a kid then me hitting the ball. :)
However, have you ever looked into Convergience Insuffiency Disorder? It's a vision problem that my Pipsqueak has.... Having no depth/spatial perception is a symptom of it. Just wanted to throw it out there for you in case she never seems to outgrow the problem.
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