Today we had Alice’s birthday party, from 11:30 AM to 3 PM. Yes, Mom really planned for a 3½ hour birthday party for 7 year old girls. Alice had about 10 kids or so show up, including one boy from her class. The other girls were from school and her dance class. Alice was very excited about getting so many presents. We managed to fill some time with pizza, and then cake, and then opening the presents. The kids also spent some time outside, playing with ice and the chickens. Alice came out with a plate of left over pizza for the chickens but walked right in to the wagon handle and fell on her face. She fled back in to the house in tears, and had to change dresses to get in to something dry. There was also a piñata which the kids enjoyed. It took several rounds of all the kids whacking on it to break it up but after the first round some of the hits would cause candy to fly out, sending the kids scambling for it. At some point, Alice became sad about this activity, although I never found out quite why (possibly because she didn’t want the piñata smashed). However, afterwards Alice demanded that she get to keep the head (and was OK with the idea of mounting it like a trophy on her bedroom wall).
After that I left to take Charles to Josie’s birthday party (it was almost a good day for Charles, having pizza and cake for lunch and dinner) and when I returned there was only one guest left, who was picked up shortly afterwards. Alice spent the rest of the day playing with her toys while Mom collapsed from nervous exhaustion.
P.S. Mom noted that Alice needs to work on sounding pleased when she gets a present she doesn’t particularly like, rather than exclaiming in a dismayed voice “Oh, not a book!”.
