People are genuinely surprised when I tell them the age of my girls. My friends and acquaintances always squeal with delight and say the standard “time flies” comment.
Time flies.
I remember a time when that saying would make my Irish anger boil to the surface.
I wanted to take my friends by their necks, slam them to the walls and scream, “Flies?! Where WERE you at 4:30am last night? Where were you when Ana decided that the middle of the mall was the place that she would DEFY ME IN A FIT OF TEARS?! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!”
Time flies.
I remember a time when that saying would make my Irish anger boil to the surface.
I wanted to take my friends by their necks, slam them to the walls and scream, “Flies?! Where WERE you at 4:30am last night? Where were you when Ana decided that the middle of the mall was the place that she would DEFY ME IN A FIT OF TEARS?! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!”
Time flies, indeed.
What do they say? The days are long, but the years are short?
It was a summer morning when it hit me. My heart actually hurt as I realized that my girls would be 5 years old. I had many feelings that moment, but we’ll focus on one… this was my last opportunity to plan a big birthday party.
What do they say? The days are long, but the years are short?
It was a summer morning when it hit me. My heart actually hurt as I realized that my girls would be 5 years old. I had many feelings that moment, but we’ll focus on one… this was my last opportunity to plan a big birthday party.
No, it is not about me… let me explain for a moment…
I tried for 4 ½ long, emotional years to have children. When I finally had my girls, I was too scared to decorate their nursery for fear of jinxing the whole thing. I didn’t plan big parties for lack of energy. I didn’t dress them in expensive clothing for lack of money… and energy… and care…
I let a lot of those “fun to have kids” things go.
And here it was… the end.
I still have girls, but they now have their OWN wants. They dress themselves. They have their own opinions.
On that summer morning, I asked them for one last favor… can I plan their birthday party?
“Can we get a water slide?,” they asked.
“Yes…SLIDE!,” I squealed.
And then it started.
The planning of the party.
It was my only chance to celebrate those two beautiful girls that became mine 5 years ago.
It was the culmination of the undecorated nursery, lame home parties, and a lack of professional portraits.
It was the fun part of having kids that I always imagined during those teary, depressing infertile years.
We had an Astronaut training birthday party, complete with evacuation training (waterslide), NBL (pool), ASCAN training (baby pool), space themed music (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, etc.), rocket dogs and NASA meatballs.
Here is the invitation:
Here are a few photos of the happy day. A day of celebration for 5 wonderful, fast years.
I can’t wait to see what they pick for next year.
Most of the images were provided by Warren Harold.
3 comments:
It was a wonderful party! Of the so many things you did right, you even had life guards to put a few extra eyes (and bodies willing to jump in the pool) to allow the parents to be a little less concerned about our astronauts-in-training. Thank you!
I think you should let the girls post their comment in the blog. That would funny years from now...
Oh How Fun! It's so cool to see your girls -- I wish I could have seen them in real life. It looks like they had a GREAT party! Five is so much fun -- and it just gets better and better!!!
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