Birthday redux

One day in Algebra II in high school, my large country-bred algebra teacher teetered up to the overhead projector at the front of the room in her plain, cotton, teacherish dress...on little high heels that were all over silver sparkles. When a surprised student asked why the glittering feet, she smiled a broad smile and said, "'Cause it's mah birthday WEEK!"

Edith's birthday week was all-over-sparkles, too. It began the weekend before, when Mor-mor and Uncle Peter arrived in town to celebrate with us for several days.


Sunday we went to the diner for our usual Sunday brunch, and to our surprise, Carol the waitress was waiting for us with special decorated cupcakes she'd purchased at the grocery store and a princess birthday card with $5 for Edith! This was from a woman who spends all week as a driver's aide on a special ed schoolbus and no doubt has plenty of little kids in her life already.


Most of the week was cold and rainy, and Edith's birthday proper was no exception. She woke up in a delightful mood and spent the morning finding the various gifts hidden around the house.

This was the first year that Edith remembered it was her birthday as soon as she woke up.

Another sign she was four: She opened the cards first.

Squishy the Snake intimidated Edith at first, but this gift from Mor-mor turned out to be a favorite.

We lunched at Bon Appetit, the little gourmet grocery and cafe three blocks away, where Edith chose her first-ever chocolate bar from among the delicious array of options. Good thing she's not burdened by abundant choices but instead stops with the first satisfactory option she identifies. In this case, it was Lindt milk chocolate.

Caught in the act of sneezing, Alice nevertheless demonstrated her gourmet baby chicness in coordinated cardigan, pants, and beret, worthy of a French cafe lunch

In the afternoon I dredged up faint memories from elementary school Spanish class, and we made pinatas for Edith's birthday party, covering a couple of balloons with several layers of paper mache. Storebought pinatas are made of cardboard, and I've never seen a group of kids able to break one open, so I wanted to make something more amenable to rupture.


In the evening, Edith was excited to join the rest of her preschool class in their spring play, all about birds. Edith was a peacock--not a peahen, mind you, with their drab unimpressive feathers. Full turquoise and green splendor for her. Nevertheless, she didn't always strut her stuff: She had told me during early rehearsals that she found the Chicken Dance silly, and sure enough, when they came to that part of the show, Edith was the only child standing stock still, staring ahead calmly, just waiting for the silliness to be over.

Here's a clip of my favorite number in the show. I thought I'd started filming earlier, but the camera turned out not to be on, so this is just the end of the piece:

One of the pleasures of the show was seeing her former teacher, Ms. Chrissy, who was in attendance. Edith ran and threw herself into Ms. Chrissy's arms. Later I asked whether she had been confused by Ms. Chrissy's altered appearance, as I was at first. Edith assured me she hadn't been. "I knew it was Ms. Chrissy even though she was brown haired. I think she probably dyed it." You can't put one over on Edith.


Wednesday morning we said goodbye to Mor-mor at the crack of dawn, and then we brought our annual batch of carrot-zucchini muffins to school to share with Edith's class for a school birthday celebration.


Friday Edith had her annual physical, at which it was determined that she is 39.75" tall (50th percentile) and weighs 37 pounds (66th percentile). She also demonstrated that her eyesight was sound, that she knew the names of her family members, that she could draw a circle and a square and approximate a triangle ("the triangle is a five-year-old skill"), that she knew her colors, that she had favorite fruits and vegetables, and that she could jump on two feet and hop on one foot, though not on the other ("a four-and-a-half-year-old skill"--who comes up with this stuff, anyway?). We got a bit of lecture on the need for her to spend more time bicycling, a lecture we've gotten before and that I confess puzzles me. Why such an emphasis on biking in particular? But otherwise all was well. I was impressed that it was the first year the pediatrician directed most of her comments to Edith first, opening by asking if Edith had any questions about her health, to which Edith responded that she sometimes gets aches in her foot that wake her up at night (true). She was quite pleased to learn that there are no shots at the four-year-old visit, especially since reading friends' blogs had prepared us for a round of them (guess the vaccine schedules vary slightly by state).

Saturday was supposed to be as rainy as the rest of the week, but the weather gods smiled on us, and we were able to hold a lovely little birthday party for Edith and half a dozen of her friends in our yard and family room. It was our first "real" birthday party, geared toward Edith and her friends, rather than toward us and our friends with babies along for the ride. There were several obligatory spilled drinks, but somehow we missed the requisite birthday-kid meltdown or goody-bag fuss. Edith seemed to have fun all morning, and I think most of the other kids did, too. Not nearly as hard as we'd feared.

Pinata time...

...for the timid...

...the little...

...and the experienced. Even so, they didn't break it, and adults had to step in and dump out the goods!

Pin the head on the dinosaur

Arts and crafts

Fun for all ages
(Emily with paper cup)

Desi, Julia, and Edith with their baby sisters

Snack time