Birthday Tsunami

It is officially 7 days and counting until Angeni's 8th birthday... we've been counting for weeks, but with this final 7 days, the excitement is peaking. The most fascinating, quirky thing I do for her birthday is create a spreadsheet to dispense equitably the loot for the loot bags... 3 gums each, this one gets lip gloss, that one gets the train whistle, yadda, yadda. Then, there is plugging the confirmed attendees' names into the annual "Pirate Bob" story... Brian reluctantly dresses up to play Capt. Bob. We've done this now for 2 or 3 years, and walk the kids through the woods to various stations. They encounter a troubador, a damsel in distress, a weird pirate in a trailer, and some of the farm animals get written into the story. For all the effort, that part takes maybe 20 minutes, maximum. Oh we have the kids create their own birthday/pirate hats at the beginning of the party. I do break up the lunch time separate from the birthday cake/presents portion, and generally try to keep them amused. It seems to work. This year more than half the kids will arrive about an hour and a half into the party because of sports... their hats will be made by those kids who make it at the beginning... this is a new occurrence.

Of course, A's stash of weird and wonderful birthday presents grows... bits of lego, some fuzzy, glow-in-the-dark slippers, a Pokemon handheld game thing, some Neopet cards... I'm even sewing some pillows covered in Pokemon fabric for her bed. The cake is one of my creature classics, complete with gummy worms, plastic spiders and flies, frogs, fake doo doo and all the nasty/silly things she has come to expect. This from a woman who once taught formal wedding and gingerbread cake decorating at community college. Somehow I revel in the dark humour of my grotesque cake creations. I think it's my inner 8-year-old. A loves it, so that's all that matters.