Bianca's Day

Last year, we had a party held here at home with all the trimmings. This meant lots of prepation for home-made party food, balloons and even a party game or two. This year, we decided to have a low-key celebration - just for the family. Easier said than done ... soon enough the celebrant was asking why she could not have a party and invite her friends? So we tried to explain that this birthday will be different, just a day out to watch a movie and visit the beach, and then back home for some birthday cake and home-made spaghetti. She did not look happy with that explanation. Until a few seconds later, she said in an excited voice - "Mommy, I have an idea! Can I invite my toys to my birthday party ? ". With our consent, she chose which toys were coming and made party hats for them with paper. Gee, talk about seeing the silver lining among the dark clouds! Some kids would have performed a full-bown tantrum in this situation. However, she knew how to make the potentially bad situation into a good one.How did she do that?! I must admit, that's great attitude for a 5 year old ... making us even more proud of her than ever before.

This special day started with her opening all her birthday presents, most of which were things to get her ready for school that starts in a couple of weeks. And then we all went out to watch "Chicken Little". I must say this was the best experience we've had watching movies with kids. For the first time, we did not have to leave our seats to run after our little boy! For lunch we went to the city and rode an old-fashioned tram to go to the beach. We had lunch and ice cream, then proceeded to play in the sand for a little while. Upon returning home , we were able to get phone calls from the the grandparents and they wished her a happy birthday. She really enjoyed that.

To cap off the day, we all had a spaghetti dinner and cake, which was yummy! The cake was decorated with pink ballerinas and candles ... that really made her day. We took a slice of the cake with candles and she blew it again in front of her toys. Ofcourse, Nico wanted to have a turn at blowing the candles so we lighted them up this a couple more times.

At the end of this very busy day as we were putting her to bed, we started talking about the highlights of the day. She enjoyed the movie, the phone calls from the grandparents and the birthday cake and party with the toys. She did like the gifts we gave her to use at school but then she said, "Next time, please get me something I can play with." Something to keep in mind for next year, she's still a little kid after all.