carousel partay

Eliana's nuts for the carousel. She started going there pretty consistently with her Nana and PopPop this past year. Memories were built, favorite horses chosen, rituals established. When her birthday rolled around it didn't even occur to me to do the party anywhere but our home. I love entertaining and it was an excuse for a big blowout. But then HS had a resurgence of funkiness with sharing that was particularly intense when kiddos were in her space. Sometimes she gets on fabulously with her buddies on her turf, but sometimes it involves high levels of intervention. So after way too much thought on my part, my brilliant friends suggested I do it on neutral turf, say, the carousel. Genius those girls are! I booked the spot and moved forward with my new plan.

It was perfect for my little Happy. The chaos level was perfectly appropriate for a three year old. No one was in the same spot for too long. There was lots of little finger food for munching, but no one had to sit at the table. It was just right for her crew at this point in their wacky little developments. Soli got into the revelry and seems to be on the upswing from the little bug he was fighting last week.

My mama was there to help get things together, even accomplished the monotonous task of grating carrots for the birthday cake and helped me secure all the details to pull the fiesta off away from home without a hitch.

All in all it was peachy. And I'm so, so glad it's over! I didn't realize how much thought I had put into this birthday thang, how much build up there was on all of our parts. When we got home, I felt this weight lifted, this contentedness of birthday completion.


Happy took a bit longer to come down. But it's 24 hours later and normalcy has been restored to the Kessler home. Tonight we were talking over dinner and Jeff was telling Eliana how proud he was of her:

J: Eliana, do you know what the word proud means? E: Yeah, dadda. J: What, Els? E: It means responsibility.

Wowzers. I'll take it.

And then earlier, at the Farmer's Market with some fellow who was chatting up Happy: How old are you? he asked. Two, no, THREE, Happy replied. She looked kind of shocked as she said three, kind of in awe of her own growth. I took am in awe of her growth. Her intelligence. Her beauty. Her insight and exuberance and passion. Her zany sense of humor. Her goodness. So once again, here's to Happy. May you continue to amaze your mama.