birthday, take 2

Now that Miss C is in Kindergarten, this is the first time Claudine has had friends of her own – not the little siblings of Mia’s friends or neighbors in the building, but friends of her very own. For the past 3 weeks she’s been telling Mia all about them, planning her little gathering of a few friends from her class and drawing their names and pictures on paper over and over again. Being as shy as she is, it’s sort of a big deal to watch her pal around with her new friends at school, seeing her run to catch up with another girl, and walking and talking about whatever it is two 5 year olds talk about.
 
All day before the party Mia kept saying “I can’t believe the house is going to be full of little Kindergarteners! They’re so cute!”. You kind of forget how big a deal age is when you’re a little kid. Even being older than someone by a few months means that you’re older than them.
 
As it turns out, it was pretty cute to have a bunch of kindergarten girls in the house. We made tiaras and bracelets, iced and decorated cupcakes. It was Claudine’s first real birthday party where she chose the guest list. A pretty good makeup birthday to Miss C’s original sick birthday, an illness that lingered for the better part of a week and one that both of us can’t quite shake off. In the end, maybe the excitement was a bit too much because she sort of broke down at the end of the day, having missed a nap that she’s been taking every day since she’s been sick. Early bedtime. Another day of being 5 tomorrow.