Birthday Recap

We survived the birthday weekend. Only one meltdown, tonight just before bedtime...which, as every parent who has hosted a birthday party for a child knows, is inevitable. Excitement, friends, lots of sugar, presents... it's overwhelming and eventually leads to tears.

But everyone had fun, even Roger and me. We got to the hotel at around 4pm...gee, wonder why the hotel folks stuck us way back in a corner? We assigned the girls their "half" of the suite, and received instructions to a) keep the door shut between us as much as possible; b) not listen to them (which pretty much guaranteed that we were going to listen, at least some of the time) and c) pretend that they weren't there and we didn't know them.

I'd have been hurt, if Caroline hadn't asked me just the other day if I would go to college with her, live in her dorm room with her, but not embarrass her by kissing her goodbye in front of her friends.

They immediately set to playing complicated games with their Breyer horses. Interestingly, they play a long, ongoing game ("It just goes on and on, Mom," Caroline explained to me once, "You know, like that soap opera you like to watch?") about the white horses and the black horses shunning each other and feuding and making life difficult for the dappled grey horses who try to be friends with both groups. Fascinating, yes? In their play, they argue over who gets to be the dappled grey horses, obviously the good peacemaker horses. Given that Caroline is Chinese, and Lani is half Japanese, I can't help wonder if their awareness of their skin color has led in some fashion to this game.

While they were playing, Caroline (in the role of a black horse) was describing a white horse as "stupid." But she knows that it's not nice to call someone "stupid" so, in her role playing she said, she spelled it out, very emphatically. "Those white horses are S-T-U-P-E-D!" If I hadn't been pretending they weren't there, I would have chuckled.

The present opening was fun...Caroline got horse related gifts and gave horse-related gifts back.





Here's Sarah, Caroline (aka The Birthday Girl) and Lani look at "Hold Your Horses," Lani's gift to Caroline. (It's a very funny look at life as a horse-lover.)

Roger took them to the pool for a while, which they loved. Me, I got to sit quietly and look at the February Martha Stewart Living magazine and read my wonderful English novel, The Married Man (a truly delightful and witty book). All too soon, they were back dripping and clamoring for food. So, per TBG's request, we ordered pizza from a place that delivered and they ate by themselves while Roger and I ate our dinner in the other room and watched "Shall We Dance" with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. Very cute.

Another funny moment...As I served their dinner, I asked "Do you girls mind eating without Roger and me?" "No!" they shouted in unison. "Parents just want to talk about dull stuff," said Sarah. "And we don't get to talk about horses the whole time if parents are here," chimed in Caroline. "And they always tell you to put your feet down," added Lani, rolling her eyes. All of those are true, in our house, but the last amused me because I do say that to Caroline all the time, with a weird flash back to my childhood when my mom said that constantly to me.