Raina's birthday was on Wednesday and to commemmorate the occasion, the weather turned out a 98-degrees-in-the-shade day. The same day, the road we take to Raina's preschool was shut down for some construction work, which meant that we had to park elsewhere and trot under a blazing sun, laden with cake, pizzas, paper plates and assorted cutlery, goodie bags, juice boxes, balloons, one balloon pump. By we, I mean myself and my husband, who'd thankfully taken the day off. Truth be told, I just carried the cake and my growing belly; he carted the rest.
We were greeted at the preschool by a very excited Raina and her assorted medley of buddies, who were behaving as if it were their birthdays too. Everyone was running around and yelling. So began a rather intense couple of hours. Miss Cindy, Raina's teacher, had decided to have the party in the backyard. Thankfully, she had a tent put up, but it was still stifling hot when we handed out juice boxes, slices of pepperoni and cheese pizzas and chips. Kids have an amazing capacity to eat, giggle, push and ask weird questions at the same time.
The husband was asked by precocious 5-year-old Grace if he was Raina's dad, and if so, did that mean he was married to Raina's mom? At one point, Raina got up to possessively stake claim by plonking on Daddy's lap. A few boys made up their minds that running around was more fun than eating. They had to be deposited on high chairs to curtail their activity. One boy amused himself by trying to eat pizza without using hands.
The sun began to pound away at me, and I made an escape to the cool indoors, where I was regaled with an unending monolog by Miss Cindy on her daughter's softball game the night before. Especially fun, since I don't much understand softball. Finally it was time to cut cake, which we did indoors. That was the best part. Everyone sang "happy birthday to Raina" and it was all worth it just to see her face. Games followed, then opening presents. By this time, Raina was close to reaching the end of her tether. She was exhausted. We wrapped up as quickly as possible and were home by 1:15, with the prospect of a raucous party to look forward to in the evening.
The evening party turned out surprisingly mellow--maybe because a whole bunch of folks decided not to show up after RSVPing aye. It was just weird. But Raina had a blast anyway, as her best friend Kiran was present. The terrible twosome decorated their hair and face with carrot cake, giggled a riot, chased balloons and bubbles and kicked up a ruckus.
The desi party's scheduled for tomorrow and preparations for that are on full swing. I can't wait for this week to be done, but at least I can be sure this has been one of the most fun weeks of Raina's life. Happy 3rd, Raina!
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