My Big Girl

Its been a while since I've posted anything, but so much has been going on that I don't know if I can narrow this down.  First and foremost, the Babe turned three.  She is now a big girl...well, to her she is a big girl, to me she's not a toddler anymore.  We're distancing ourselves from two- you know, the terrible two's.  Not that she doesn't have her moments: to test me, exhaust me, or just plain make me a bit crazy, but that is to be expected.

For a few months now the Babe has been excited about her birthday.  In particular, her birthday party.  She knew she wanted balloons, cake, candles, and decorations.  When anyone asked her what she wanted for her birthday, as in a gift, she would start off by telling them purple.  What else, they'd ask?  Blue, orange, yellow, indigo, violet.  Hmmm, apparently she wanted a colorful birthday. 

While we've been invited to a few children's birthday parties, since the Babe's allergies, we haven't attended any.  So, the Babe does not know what a children's birthday party is really like.  In fact, the first thing everyone noticed at her birthday party was the noise.  Our house isn't small, but it suddenly shrunk when you threw in some of her friends, their parents, and our relatives.  And the Babe initially didn't like that, but grew to ignore the volume as she ran all over the place with the kids. 

There were balloons, some minor decorations, cake and cupcakes, cookies, chips and dip, and fruit.  After blowing out her candles and eating cake, I had an activity planned in our basement that was suitable for all ages.  I was very proud of it too.  The Babe likes to do projects using foam stickies, so I bought colored foam frames, a bunch of various foam stickies (dinosaurs, flower, planes and cars, ladybugs, etc.), and magnetic tape.  This is where I was proud of my creativity.  The kids could decorate a frame, I'd cut two strips of magnetic tape to apply to the frame's back, and then once they got them home their parents could just tape a picture to the frame, and voila- refrigerator art/picture frame. 

Some kids were entertained by the project, others just wanted to play with her toys.  So for a while the chaos remained in our basement, while others got to talk in more quieter surroundings upstairs.  And then came gift opening time.  Up to that point, everything was going along great.  But alas, we can never have perfection.  The Babe started coughing, and my husband and I warily watched with bated breath, not sure if she was having an allergic reaction to something, or if her asthma was kicking in.  We stopped the gift opening, took her away, gave her the inhaler, and waited a few more minutes.  We didn't give her Benadryl, but watched her, and let her resume gift opening.  After a while she seemed ok, but that meant my husband and I were on allergy watch from that point forward. 

She had a fabulous time at her party, and would like another one sometime soon.  I am very happy she could enjoy her party, and have some normalcy.  However, it was exhausting!  I baked, I cleaned, I picked up.  I can wait another year to do this again.