Week 4 - Monday (It's Her Party... )

Sophie's celebrating her 5th birthday today and I was more anxious and excited than she was. It felt almost like the day Papa and I got married and we worried so much that there would be empty seats at our wedding dinner. Today, I worried about absentees. The little girl would be disappointed and Papa would hate to pay for a no show. 

Sophie wore a pink dress with nice slices of strawberry cake prints around. She looked sweet and very much like a 5 year old. Alfee seemed excited as well even though he probably hadn't got a single clue to what was happening. We carried out the morning routine as much as possible, sending them to nap before the event. Then we set off to the venue for the party. This year, we celebrated Sophie's 5th birthday at Art Speaks Studio with a painting session. 

The children were first given a nice, hand painted body tattoo while waiting for others to arrive. Alfee asked for a puppy while Sophie got a pink crown. Also each invited guest got either a heart wand or a sword.

The studio was great but the staff seemed a little inexperienced with parties. Most of the time they were reacting to the situation and I was a little apologetic for the chaos. So when the kids went in to start the painting session, I was pretty glad. The girls painted princesses while the boys painted princes. 

Sophie chose to sit besides her best friend in school, Joel. Not sure if the feelings are mutual but she's always talking about him and drawing him. Maybe he's on the quieter side so he doesn't mind the chatty Sophie. 

I was told that most of the invited guests had never painted on canvas before. Sophie was very comfortable painting on canvas it seemed. She just painted without much thought or care. She was fast as well. Although her work wasn't great, she was very expressive and eager to complete her work.

As usual, she also didn't care much about her clothes, new clothes. She was covered with paint and she thought it was pretty normal. When the trainer came over to instruct and guide her, I could see that Sophie didn't appreciate the interruption.She would rather do everything herself, I suppose.

Soon, Sophie was done with her work and was ready to proceed to the 'play' component of the party. However, there wasn't any 'play' part to her birthday celebration. Soon she was weaving in and out with others who had similar sentiments. 

There was a princess costume which was part of the package, complete with a tiara. However, Sophie refused to put it on. I was very puzzled because she had always wanted us to buy her a princess costume and the one they offered was Princess Aurora's pink gown. There was really no reason for her to turn down such a tempting offer... Then she confessed that she had a dream the night before that she put on a princess gown and everyone laughed at her. So, she preferred to just skip that... 

When most of the children were done with their work, they went to an adjacent room for some refreshments. We also had to bring the cake there for the cake cutting ceremony. That made me very nervous because the castle cake was ridiculously unstable. 

The towers collapsed on the way there and we had to 'fix' them back on. Fortunately I had 10 princess figurines to hide some of the more obvious damages. Yet, the whole thing looked a little disappointing. I had visualised it as a romantic castle but it didn't quite gel with my mental image.

The only consolation - nobody seemed to mind at all. The children still crowded around the cake and looked at it with amazement. Some didn't even care about the cake! I was glad the whole studio was made available for us. There was plenty of room for everyone to hang out and even run around (though  very discouraged).

Finally, time for cake cutting. It was a nice and quick affair and not much cake was wasted. I was very happy that I didn't succumb to the cake shop assistant's strong recommendation to make a 3 kg cake. It would have been a much bigger disaster then. I think it was a good size and Sophie wasn't too impressed anyway. 

Sometimes, I think Sophie is very hard to please. She thinks I am some sort of magician (or a witch) who can weave magic and make anything happen. When she was younger, she used to get impressed by what I create, now I don't get any admiration from her anymore. And it's exhausting trying to meet her needs.

Each invited guest could bring home their canvas and 2 photographs. The staff had a hard time printing them all out and some of the guests had to wait a long while for them to be ready. Fortunately, the kids didn't seem to mind at all. They went into their own games and they seemed to be having a lot of fun!

We left the studio around 4.30pm (as planned). We were so drained but the kids still had to go through their evening routine before we could call it a day. I was really relieved the whole party was over and done with! It's been in my mind for a few months!

Good goodies from the studio's goody bags...

Of course, I would like to thank everyone who had turned up and the wonderful gifts as well! Sophie was really looking forward to the party and she came home, feeling very happy and blessed. Most importantly, she realised she has got some really great friends to share her life with!

Wonderful gifts!