Bella’s 2nd Birthday party was a huge success! And why wouldn’t it be? A spectacle of these proportions required weeks of preparation and planning. From ordering the cake to planning the party favors, I felt like I was planning a wedding for a princess, not a birthday party for a toddler!
Jin and I decided early on that we didn’t want the headache of cleaning up after 15 unruly kids. So we decided to hold it outside of our home at The Little Gym (TLG). For an acceptable service charge, the party coordinators at TLG promised to accommodate everything from set-up to clean up. Plus, they offered an instructor-led gymnastics session for the kids, which in reality turned out to be a rowdy, rough-n-tumble free-for-all for the toddlers.
Kids were running about, yelling and climbing over all the equipment. TLG set up a giant inflatable bouncy house (with no walls); legs and arms were flying every which way; adults were trying their best to regulate their respective children while babies crawled dangerously close to the path of jumping toddlers. It was mass chaos. And completely fun! Better at TLG than in our home on our own couch!
There was of course, the occasional faux paus in planning that hopefully no one noticed (I doubt any 2-year old noticed the fact I miscounted the number of party favors for the babies). In fact, I overprepared the food and settings at least three-times over, which meant we had 3-gallons worth of ice cream, 2 full party trays of fruit and veggies, and juice and water leftover for at least 2 weeks.
Bella absolutely loved everything! (at least I think she did) And opening the gifts was fun, too. Every gift she opened was accompanied with a huge, wide-eyed expression of gratitude. “Wow!”, she exclaimed repeatedly. It’s too bad Mattel had to go and ruin the fun by using lead paint on their toys. A necessary online recall check would be required before Bella would see any of her toys outside their boxes.
She was so tired out from the birthday activities at school and at her own party that her little immune defenses called it quits for a few days and allowed her to come down with a strange illness. For the past week she’s had a mysterious fever up to 104 degrees with no other telltale symptoms. At first we weren’t too concerned and thought it was probably a typical cold virus. But after the 5th day of continued fevers, we sent her to the doctor, and then to the after-hours pediatrician to get her checked out. No obvious signs of infection were present so the doc decided to catheterize her, and run a urine sample to rule-out a bladder or kidney infection. Luckily nothing was noted. Today, the 7th day since the fevers began, her temperature is finally normalizing.
Here are some pictures of Bella’s Grand Party:
Birthday Girl all dressed up for her party. Bella and Grandma
Flying children. Trying to sit still for a group picture
Her cupcakes for school... Bella's Birthday cake
HAPPY BIRTDAY, GOO-GOO!
0 comments:
Post a Comment