Our last day in Woodstock was Kate's 4th birthday. Kate inherited her mama's enthusiasm for her own birthday. Life is grand and a delightful way to acknowledge that is by embracing that anniversary of the day yours began. Happily, Kate gets that. Also, she knew there would be gifts and cake for her. She awoke utterly full of herself, which I loved. At one point, accustomed to being told we are "not going to Target for you", Kate informed Ro "today is not about you. It's about me." We had a big day planned, too. Chris and Sonya had opted to bed down in town and head out in the morning, so we were going to meet them for breakfast. After that there was to be more back yard water play, followed by making cupcakes with Aunt Sue and ultimately, a cookout in Kate's honor. And of course, the greatly anticipated singing of Happy Birthday.
We didn't take any pictures of breakfast. It was a nice gathering, possibly worthy of photo documentation but sometimes we get tired of dragging out the camera, OK? Sheesh. We did take photos of Kate opening all her presents. Here she is prior to Chris and Sonya's departure, opening her gifts from Grammy Lindgrove, who she has lately taken to calling Grammy Margie for reasons to which we are not privy. There are worse things to be called, I suppose, so we've been letting her run with it. This is the robo-Panda. A robotic bear? Terrifying.
Next, as promised, water fun. The girls swam and swam and swam in the little pool which the dog, Farley, believed to be his. He swam with them. The adults lounged around the pool with their beverages and talked about taxes and politics and their IRAs or whatever it is adults talk about who cares?
We didn't take any pictures of breakfast. It was a nice gathering, possibly worthy of photo documentation but sometimes we get tired of dragging out the camera, OK? Sheesh. We did take photos of Kate opening all her presents. Here she is prior to Chris and Sonya's departure, opening her gifts from Grammy Lindgrove, who she has lately taken to calling Grammy Margie for reasons to which we are not privy. There are worse things to be called, I suppose, so we've been letting her run with it. This is the robo-Panda. A robotic bear? Terrifying.
Next, as promised, water fun. The girls swam and swam and swam in the little pool which the dog, Farley, believed to be his. He swam with them. The adults lounged around the pool with their beverages and talked about taxes and politics and their IRAs or whatever it is adults talk about who cares?
At some point during this perfectly enjoyable afternoon Keith, totally unprompted and for no other reason than that he is pure evil, threw me in the pool fully clothed. Dad was right there and didn't do anything! Typical. This, I would argue, supports my theory that Keith needed to be preemtively struck in the chest with a water balloon. The cupcake-baking was a smashing success! Kate even cracked a few eggs and mixed up the batter like a proper little chef.
The baking portion of the day was fun, but the decorating segment was the real crowd-pleaser.
Friends and family arrived, ate, drank, were generally merry. Kate opened gifts. We got her a couple of Shakespeare's plays written for kids with art by kids and some summary explanations by kids. She looked at them briefly with a "what the..." expression and tossed them aside. She'll come around though. Wait till she finds out she's named, in part, after the Shrew.
Then Sarah stopped breathing and traumatized everyone there (except Kate, who seemed not to notice). That was not how we'd planned to end the evening, but it all worked out and Sarah even got to eat a cupcake immediately before bed. Kate, mouth full of cupcake, asked me if tomorrow could be her birthday too. I explained that what makes birthdays special was that they are just one day out of the whole year. Then, to completely obliterate my little life lesson, we returned home to gifts from Aunt Jo Jo and Uncle Steve, all the Miami Druekes, and the promise of a party with her friends at a later date. I'm sure she understands, though, right?
6 comments:
I feel responsible for teaching her to say Grammy Margie. We grew up calling our grandmas with first names. I hope I'm not in trouble.
When Rosellen was learning to talk we tried with all our might to teach her to call my parents "meemaw" and "peepaw". This is the kind of thing I was thinking of when I pointed out that there are worse things to be called than "Margie". So you see, you couldn't possibly be in trouble.
Point of order:
I was sitting in a lawn chair, being all Hank Hill-like. I was viciously and unprovocatively ATTACKED with a water balloon. I immediately assumed it was Lisa what did it, since she was laughing, and she has a wicked pitching arm (for a girl). Everybody was quite supportive of my unilateral decision to retaliate by throwing her in the urine-filled wading pool. Then I attacked Iraq, because the possess water balloon technology too.
The most satisfying part of the entire episode occurred after having meted out justice. Peepaw, who never even moved from his lawnchair, muttered, "Now she's going to run inside and tell her mom."
I like the pic of Sarah standing on a chair and shoveling chocolate frosting into her mouth with a knife. You probably ought to keep her medical records in the car with you at all times, like Patrick Swayze's James Dalton did in Roadhouse.
Hey Keith, that's a pretty good trick - peeing in the pool before you throw someone into it. Next time, I'll know to take a sip before I jump into one of your kiddie pools.
what i hat about pandas is not robotic enghou
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