Happy Mother's Day

Three years ago, I spent mother's day in the hospital, after the unexpectedly early birth of my daughter. (We've really planned our births well--I spent Christmas day in the hospital with my son, and mother's day with my daughter. If we have another one, I wonder what holiday we'll get then?) As hard as that day was for me (we were just realizing that she wouldn't be coming home with us when I went home--she had another two plus weeks to stay), it was also a sweet reminder of why we have mother's day in the first place. I know a lot of women dislike mother's day--I don't make the mistake of thinking that any mother (myself included) is perfect, but I do like the idea that there is a day set aside for us to remember our mothers. (Speaking of which, I should call mine!)


It's hard to believe it's been three years (almost) already. Evelyn will be 3 on Tuesday.

However, because we've got a busy week ahead of us with family, etc., we decided to have Evelyn's birthday party early. Wednesday morning saw us with a house full of little girls (6, including Evelyn) and 3 boys (mostly brothers). Now, I have to say that I'm not normally a fan of big parties for small children, but in this case it was hard to avoid--our neighbor has triplets who are Evelyn's age and friends of ours.

Here's Evelyn on the morning of her big day--and Andrew, who doesn't quite know how to deal with not being the center of attention.

Since Evelyn--big surprise--wanted a princes themed party, princesses were the order of the day. I gave each little girl a little notebook that said, "A princess must be . . . " and we hosted a princess academy. For each royal characteristic, we had a little activity, at the end of which the girls got a sticker.

A princess must be well-dressed (I didn't want to say "beautiful," because I want my daughter to look beyond just the surface aspects of a princess). I found some inexpensive plastic shoes for the girls, and they borrowed some of Evelyn's many tutus.

And a princess must be creative, so we made foam crowns.

A princess must be graceful and athletic--so we tried dancing. However, that didn't work too well in the plastic shoes (Evelyn crashed on her partner just moments after this picture).

A princess must be kind. . . . the girls helped a stuffed penguin find his missing friends. (I hid stuffed animals around the room).

A princess must be healthy . . . we adjourned to the dining room for some cheese, crackers, and fruit.

And finally (because I was feeling inspired by the Princess Knight book I mentioned last week), a princess must be brave. Andrew and his friends agreed to put on dinosaur masks and act like dragons, and the princesses had to frighten them off with their magic bubbles. Everyone (dragons and princesses) enjoyed this one.


Then each girl was able to exchange her foam crown for a "real" crown, signifying that she had successfully passed the princess academy. (Although at least half of the girls preferred the foam crown).

Afterwards, we had pink cupcakes and then presents. And I don't have any pictures of the cupcakes because we couldn't find the camera. The cupcakes were also rather plain (as my birthday cakes go), partly because, having made 48 cupcakes for a fund-raiser on Monday (that's another story entirely--you can read something about it on my other blog), I didn't feel up to anything fancy. And partly because a bathroom emergency (meaning, he made a mess in the bathroom) on Andrew's part at a critical moment in the frosting process meant that I didn't have the time. Anyway, no one seemed to mind. They were pink (bright pink) which was all Evelyn cared about.


My mom was in town this week, partly for Evelyn's party and partly to help watch my kids while I dealt with finals. (My final exam was the very last slot on Thursday). But apparently, her real purpose was to come weed my yard. With ruthless efficiency, she weeded my *entire* garden spot (which I wasn't planning on doing since I didn't figure we'd be able to get in a garden this year). This is just one more reason why my mom is terrific--I wish I had her stamina for gardening! In any case, it was fun to have her here.

After she left, things got pretty quiet. I spent much of yesterday grading while Dan took the kids out to do things like buy a soaker hose for our now cleared garden. But we survived, and had a lovely quiet morning this morning. Andrew gave me a mother's day card (actually a book) about him and Evelyn making me a mother's day card . . . a very "meta" moment that the English geek in me appreciated. And Dan gave me the present I've been requesting for the past couple Christmases . . . a book (350+ pages) of our blog, from 2007-2009 (now we're only a year behind! Guess what I want next year . . . ). Somehow, seeing the concrete version of this blog made me appreciate what an accomplishment this is. We may not have many readers, but we have a real record of our family life. It was fun to look back through it and reminisce about things I would never have otherwise remembered, like the prayer Andrew gave when he was two, and asked Heavenly Father to bless everyone, "except for Reginald Von Hoobie Doobie" (a character in Mo Willem's book, Edwina, the Dinosaur who didn't know she was extinct).

One final picture for the record: this is what happens when Evelyn goes into the bathroom unsupervised and finds my eye shadow. She almost got her eyelids (eyebrows are close, right?). And if you look closely, you can see pink marker by her mouth, the remnants of the coloring orgy she and Andrew indulged in while I was trying to finish grading one more paper. (Of course, if I'd realized they were coloring each other and not paper, I would have intervened much sooner!). I didn't think to take a picture, but they were quite a sight. Andrew colored his arms and legs orange, "too look like his soccer shin guards," and Evelyn decorated her legs with lovely pink and purple squigglies.