Oliver Turns 5, Part II
Welcome back to the birthday celebration! I apologize to those of you who were expecting this post up earlier in the week... I was expecting the same myself until Oliver came down with pink eye and the rest of the world ground to a halt around here. (By the way, all you pediatricians out there... it is difficult to impossible to successfully put ointment in a five year-old's eyes once, MUCH LESS four times a day for five days. At roughly two hours per application, that would mean that over the course of a week, we would spend a FULL WORK WEEK torturing trying to help our child... and instead of a paycheck we get a near-constant soundtrack including wailing and gnashing of teeth. Gah!)
But! I digress! Where was I? Oh yes: Oliver's birthday. If it were possible to contract pink eye from too much excitement, then that is what I'd chalk it up to... the close of his fifth year on this earth was marked with not one, not two, but three parties. Well, three events, anyway. The first was the birthday day itself, which included chocolate chip muffins for breakfast and cupcakes at school at lunchtime. Then, over the weekend, both my family and Matt's came to town for a family celebration:
And this last one courtesy of my dad, which you should view while singing the old Sesame Street favorite "one of these kids is not like the others":
Per Oliver's request, we went out for pizza on Saturday night, then came home to cake and ice cream. I'm not including pictures of that cake, because somehow I managed not to include one or maybe three or four ingredients and it turned out to be more of a thick, savory, chocolate-flavored crepe than a cake. Think that sounds good? You're wrong. Oliver thought it was edible, though, so he merrily ate his piece while the rest of us choked and gagged and quietly scraped ours into the garbage. Thank goodness for ice cream!
The next day was our knights and maidens party for Oliver's friends. In trying to plan this party, I stressed about the fact that while February weather doesn't allow us to plan an outdoor party, our small house doesn't really give us much room for an indoor party. Then one night it occurred to me that there would be plenty of space... if only we didn't have furniture! And so it was that on Sunday morning we put our families to work moving everything that wasn't attached to the floor from our living room into the dining room, then turning the empty space into a castle... and it was perfect: plenty of space and an easy clean-up afterward!
As everyone arrived, they decorated crowns and shields:
In the middle of all that, Oliver's teacher arrived. We had mentioned the party to her, but weren't really expecting that she'd come on her day off. As it turned out, though, we couldn't have gotten a better reaction if we'd hired a clown or a pony... when Ms. Jill walked in the door, judging by the kids' squeals and shrieks of delight, you'd think the Beatles had shown up ready to play.
It was a lovely, simple party. We had games...
...and cake...
...and a lot of this:
...and somehow, in the course of two hours, no one got hurt, and no one cried.
Dear friends and family, thank you so much for making Oliver's birthday one I imagine he'll never forget. We love you all...
xox,
annemie