Matching Tracksuits

What makes a perfect birthday party perfect? It’s not number of guests, for if that’s the case, today’s party would be very far from perfect. It’s not the price of the gifts, for no matter how much one spends on a present, more is always an option. It’s not the cake, though in the case of E and his destruction cake a couple of years back, it certainly made a positive impact.

Having a part in the planning and preparation of your party would be an element of a perfect party, a perfect sign that double digits and more approach. The Girl chose a craft-centered party, spending several weeks researching and thinking about which activities she wanted at her party. In the end, she chose holiday-themed crafts: gingerbread decoration and Christmas tree baubles.

Morning was dedicated to baking gingerbread, then, in various shapes and sizes. There was also significant cleaning as one of the guests is allergic to cats — never before has the Girl’s room and the living room been so thoroughly cleaned. Early afternoon was decorating. And finally, after putting the balloons in place and dressing both Caroline and herself in matching outfits, the Girl was ready for the guests.

Once the girls arrived, the Boy, though, felt suddenly left out. He went into the living room, flopped down on the couch, and said, “Daddy, I’m boring. I’m not doing anything.” The girls headed down to the trampoline and he just watched from the balcony. “Don’t worry — you’ll get to do all the crafts with the girls. You’ll decorate some gingerbread and make a bauble and do whatever else you want to.”

After crafts, pizza and a movie, and a bit of fingernail painting. And finally, we cleaned up the mess, and I asked the Girl, “So, was it a perfect party?”

“Pretty much.”

And that’s the best present she can give to K and me.

It started with cupcakes at school.

A quick Mama/L day followed, with some bouncing

and ear piercing.

A chocolate ice cream birthday cake

and a couple of long-sought gifts rounded out the Girl’s eighth birthday.

Well, almost.

The first party was such an event. Our first child’s first birthday party was, in a word, a first. This is not to say that successive years the significance of birthday parties has diminished. But firsts are firsts. With practice we’ve gotten better at the parties. Practice makes perfect.

In short, though, we’ve found that it’s simpler to pay other people to do the big stuff — the food, the cake, the drinks — while we focus on the fun. This year, an ice skating party. The Girl had a head-start, or perhaps foot-start, with all the roller skating she did this autumn on our fresh concrete drive. Her first ice adventure was halting, with complete reliance on the walker-like skating aid. This year, after a few minutes’ instruction, she was ready to head off on her own.

In a sense, that’s what birthday parties are all about, getting children ready to head off on their own. In her own time, in her own time, some might say. Still, even a seventh birthday is a suggestion of the development that is simultaneously distant and just around the bend.

I only have to look at E to be reminded how quickly it can pass.

Five years of joy and frustration, smiles and cries, small victories and smaller defeats all culminate today. Technically, the birthday is next Friday, but try explaining that to L today.

All week it’s been the same refrain: “How many days until my birthday party?” And who could blame her when the birthday party involved drawing (almost) anything her imagination can inspire?

Two years ago, we went for an art birthday party and K kept it in the back of her mind as an original yet fun party for the Girl. Today is that day, a day of blue backgrounds and gray elephants, trunks up, tails down, trunks down, tails up — whatever each child wishes.

The instructor is just as you would imagine her to be: questioning (“Is this the inside or the outside of the elephant’s ear? The outside, right? What part is pink, the outside or inside?”) yet ultimately accepting of the young artists’ decisions (“You can make it any color you like; it’s your elephant. But what part of most elephants’ ears are pink?”).

The kids work, the adults talk, and the afternoon slides by in a smear of every color imaginable, all accompanied by continual laughter and chatter. The artists check each other’s work, make comments, ask questions, offer suggestions.

Yet there comes a time in every artist’s creative endeavors when a decision must be made. Paul Valéry once said, “A poem is never finished, only abandoned,” and I’d imagine that most visual artists feel the same. Yet cake, ice cream, and presents waited, so the creative process was sped up with the assistance of technology.

And after some cleaning,

and a ceremonial hanging of the art,

it’s time for the cake. It’s the first year K didn’t bake the cake for L’s birthday, and certainly every atom in K’s Polish body screamed, “It’s not right! You can not be a good mother and not bake your daughter’s cake!”

But somehow we all survive.

The presents make up for everything.

And the greatest present of all: so many people took so much time out of their Saturday to come share the Girl’s day.