Phew! Blair's birthday party is officially done and on the books! What a whirlwind of a week leading up to the party! I have to say, I'm so glad it's over. Here is a recap...
We drove back into town around 1:15 AM on Tuesday morning. Blair has Tuesday School every Tuesday morning and because we had been driving the entire day before, I decided that if the girls slept in, we would skip school. Little Miss had other plans and got up at the regular time of 7:30, leaving us plenty of time to get ready for school. No one could believe it when I told them we had pulled in just that morning a few hours earlier. We managed to make it through the day fine, but I just didn't have the energy to do any party prep-- typical procrastinator.
Wednesday was much of the same, everyone just trying to get back into the daily groove. Mark went to work and by the time he got home, I was ready to get out of the house and run some birthday errands. He agreed and when I went into the bathroom to get myself ready to go, I noticed my right eye was very red. I wear contacts, so red eyes aren't totally uncommon, but this was different and I knew at once that it was probably pink eye. Since we had to get the cake ordered and some food purchased, I wore my glasses and we went anyway.
The next morning, I awoke with crusties around my eyelashes. I went to Urgent Care and the doctor there confirmed my suspicions, giving me ointment and a heads up that it could show up in my other eye too. At this point, I had developed a pretty yucky sinus cold that was also affecting my chest. I really wanted to call off the party, or at least postpone it, but my parents had left MN to drive all the way out here just for the party and I couldn't cancel. So I hoped the ointment worked, washed my hands, wore my glasses and went on with the show.
Friday morning, I woke up to a new surprise: the pink eye had now entered my left eye. Also, my voice was very hoarse and my throat was on fire. It was going to be a great day! My parents had arrived safely the night before, so my mom and I went to work, getting the last of the groceries and baking up a storm. I also made the birthday banner and centerpieces. We worked long into the evening and were exhausted when bedtime finally came.
Saturday morning was the day of the party! We rented out a local park shelter that had a lovely fireplace, complete with firewood. The party started at 11, so my goal was to be there by 9 to start setting up. Timing didn't work out that well and we didn't arrive until closer to 10. The shelter is outdoors, but I figured by early March it wouldn't be miserably too cold, especially with a fire raging and a propane heater blowing. I figured totally wrong as it was in the 20's that day. Our fingers were freezing as we tried to hang banners and decorate things... my grand idea of how it would look did not come to fruition, but all things considered (freezing cold, I felt like trash, etc) it looked pretty nice.
Sadly, even though several of Blair's little pals were invited, only 3 came. Some were out of town, others had family visiting, one was even being punished for being naughty and her punishment was that she couldn't come to the party. Also, the original plan for the "fun" part of the party was that the kids could go sledding. That was a no-go because even though there were small, light flakes falling, there was not nearly enough snow to sled on. The party was supposed to go from 11-1, but because everyone was so cold (we spent the whole time huddled around the fireplace or the propane heater), things started to break up around 12:15. I feel a little bit sad about how it all went down, but honestly, I was super cold myself and feeling completely awful that I couldn't wait to get out of there either.
Will it go down as the worst birthday party in history? Maybe? But amazingly, despite being cold and having so few friends show up, Little Miss wore a smile for most of the day and enjoyed being celebrated. She happily played with her friends, ate her cupcake and explored the stone look-out "castle" behind the shelter. For me, yes, it was just an awful day. But to have made the birthday girl happy, despite everything else, that was worth it all.
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