ten minutes to myself

curse of the summer birthday

My last post here was about Madeline's early birthday celebration at school. Since that day, she's been quite convinced that her birthday has come and gone, and she's now among the four year-olds of the world. It cracks me up when she says, "When my birthday comes, I'll be five!"

As cute and funny as I think this is, as a consequence I lost my sense of urgency for planning for Madeline's actual birthday, which is this weekend. Chris and I were hoping to whisk her away for a weekend of four year-old fun, and haven't actually made any of the required reservations to do so. The only gift I have to wrap up for her is a new swimsuit, which I am sure she'll like, but it probably isn't what four year-old girls dream about  for their birthdays!

catering to the masses

madeline's masterpiece
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

My kiddo has been fixated on celebrating her fourth birthday for several months. I don't think that there is anything that she's looking forward to more. Back in March, she actually drew up some pretend party invites and handed them out to her friends at school, which was kind of awkward, even if they were just swatches of paper with crayon scribbles on them .

Anyway, today Madeline's birthday was celebrated at preschool, twenty-six days ahead of the actual event, and three days before the end of the school year. I had spent the past two mornings carefully preparing hummingbird cupcakes and cream cheese frosting from scratch.

I brought them to her school at snacktime, and watched Madeline's delightful expression as her classmates sang to her, a cupcake in front of every one of them. After the song, the preschoolers proceeded to lick or poke at the frosting of their cupcakes, and then unceremoniously drop them into the compost bin so that they could hurry out to the playground.

Next year, I think I'll opt for the miniature two-bite cupcakes instead.