(no subject)

I have my flaws, but sometimes I think I get the mom thing right.



Alex is having a Fairy Tale Princess birthday party this afternoon.

Five or six friends will be coming over dressed in their finest princess gear. Michael and I are also dressing up in costume as the King and Queen.

I got plastic wine glasses at the party store, which the children will decorate with stick-on jewels (I decided to go for "easy" rather than "permanent") to make themselves royal goblets. We're also planning to play three games: The Cinderella Relay, in which one shoe from each kid is piled in the center of the floor and in relay teams the kids run to the middle, find their shoe, put it on, and race back to their team; Musical Sleeping Beauty, which is just like musical chairs except that instead of chairs there are beds made from baby blankets, and when the music stops the kids need to find a spot to fall asleep for a hundred years; and The Queen Says, which is a royal version of Simon Says.

Alex has been watching out the front window for her friends since right after breakfast.

(no subject)

Great party. I didn't get a whole bunch of pictures this year, because this year we didn't hire anyone to help with the party and most of the parents didn't stay. So I was pretty busy.

As you can see, the kids looked fabulous. The one boy invited decided at the last minute not to wear his costume, but unsurprisingly all the girls were way into it. They spent a lot of time just running around being princesses.

The games were a mixed bag, with some of the kids not wanting to play and getting upset and others having a great time. I didn't expect as many game refusals, but at least one kid didn't want to play each game. There was no dissent about decorating royal goblets - everyone loved it. They spent a lot of time on their goblets, sticking on jewels until every single jewel - and I bought a lot of jewels - was used up.

The cake went fast.

It's funny: many of her friends have had parties including the whole class. I limited Alex to sending out 8 invitations, and when some of her friends couldn't come I worried a lot that I had restricted her too much and that the party wouldn't be much fun. But wow, five friends was plenty big enough. None of them seemed to think the party was too small. And I'm really glad afterward that she doesn't have 15 new toys.