My husband and I have been working it seems all week to prepare for a party we were hosting for the school today. The party seemed simple enough in and of itself: adults upstairs and children downstairs, catered food and a few beverages upstairs, standard kid fare downstairs. There was to be a craft activity for the children to do in the basement. I didn't coordinate the catering. I didn't have anything to do with the craft. And yet it seemed like there was just a lot to do.
Mostly it was preparing our house for Christmas. It's earlier in the month than we normally do, but it needed to be done before the party. Since we were hosting a party that had a holiday theme attached, I wanted the house to be a little more festive than I suppose I would have normally made it.
Now that it's done though, I'm glad we did it early. The house looks great and the candles made it smell all holiday-ish for the party. The children had a wonderful time in the basement and back yard—hooray for clement weather in December—and the adults socialized and had fun like adults are good at doing.
I had put decorations all around, trying to put the right sized items in each location. This is something I'm not that good at. I know a tiny thing in a large location won't stand out and a large thing in a cramped location will look forced. So I spent time moving things here and there to find homes appropriate in size, color and balance. I am terrible at this so it was a cumbersome couple hours of moving things here and there, looking at them, thinking, "no that doesn't work either," until I eventually got it right.
One of the items I put out was a lollipop tree my father had made and given to us several years ago. He found some handmade, unfinished wooden lollipop trees from an estate auction and decided to finish them. He painted it, built a base and gave it to us for a Christmas present one year. This year I had my children put colorful lollipops in the tree. They of course wanted to eat the lollipops, but we decided to have them after dinner. When the tree was done, I put it on the butler's pantry countertop at the top of the stairs and my children promptly forgot about the lollipops.
I had forgotten too, but the children who came to our event today didn't. They came up and down those stairs multiple times and I think every time they did so, they looked at the lollipop tree and thought about the lollipops on it. Towards the end of the party one little boy got up the nerve to ask if he could have a lollipop. I told him it was fine with me if his parents said yes.
The next thing I know, children start appearing from all over, asking me if they, too, can have a lollipop. It was fun, watching them each reach up and select the color they wanted just before they left to go home.
The Big Boy Update: I found a pacifier in the go bag a week ago. I gave it to my son to see what he'd say. He looked at it and told me, "no, I'm a big boy."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter had an alligator bath toy that fell over the edge of the tub. She said, "hey, give me that dragon back!" I told her, "it's an alligator." She responded, "no, it's not" in such a definitive tone that I didn't even think about arguing the point.
Party Update: I didn't do anything today exercise-wise but I sure feel tired. I've been standing and walking around the house all day preparing for, hosting and then cleaning up after a party. I walked five miles in my own house as I did so. I think it's time for bed.
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