This year we had your birthday party in a venue that was not our apartment. Every year your Daddy and I argue over what to do for your party - I am cheap and want to have it at home, but a house full of kids and their parents (and the resulting clean up) stresses your Dad out. This year I let him win.
We had your party at the Audubon Center in Prospect Park. There were bird puppets to be made and there were insects and magnifying glasses, bird puzzles, bird mobiles, a tee-pee looking thing, animals that you can climb on and see the world through their eyes. You weren't interested in any of this. I had made you a train cake for your birthday and you needed to stare at it.
Then we went on a nature walk.
Everyone was "starving" after the nature walk, so we had pizza and pasta and bananas for lunch, and then you blew out the candles and we ate the train cake. Everyone got to chose which part of the cake they wanted to eat. You chose the funnel. The hopper car full of jelly beans was the most popular. The adults said they didn't want any but ended up eating all the Oreo cookies / wheels.
Your birthday party was strangely calm. There were 7 other kids, and we asked everyone to leave their siblings at home. Nobody cried, nobody fought, there was very little screaming. And coming home to a clean house was pretty extraordinary. Somehow it didn't feel like a birthday party to me, because the usual crowding and chaos that I've come associate with children's birthday parties was missing. It was very civilized. A perfect party for my 4-year-old introvert.
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