Today is my daughter's 5th birthday and I've been crafting my ass off for the past week to prepare for her upcoming party. I tend to over promise, but since I come really close, she is always overjoyed.
When my daughter was three I told her I'd take her to Paris to celebrate her fifth birthday. In August, I became a bit itchy around the collar when I realized she is a bonafide student and I'm a bonafide teacher, who have to adhere to an academic calendar, so we can't just drop everything to stroll around the city of love hand-in-hand.
Although the landscape was looking quite grim, I didn't completely abandon the dream. However, last Friday I accepted the reality. I said to my husband, "I don't think were making it to Paris on Monday."
He cheered me up, and said, "we'll just have to celebrate it when we make it there."
This is true, and so we will. My daughter, like me, has an elephant's memory. And so she never forgot about Paris. We spent quite a bit of time talking about how we'd celebrate, and even when we weren't talking about it, I'd picture it in my mind.
Her thin mop of white hair tied in a top knot on her head. She wore a faux fur leopard jacket and I had on a chic black moto leather jacket . We both wore oversized tortoise shell sunglasses. I imagined us sitting at a bistro table enjoying lovely cups of coffee for me, and hot chocolate for her. The Eiffel Tower is in the background and pigeons pecking at bread crumbs are in the foreground.
I suppose I should have bought her the jacket, and maybe the dream would have come true.
Her Actual party is Wizard of Oz theme, and so I painted her a Pin the heart on Tin Man game. It took me an entire day and ten dollars in supplies. I stole the idea from a product sold on Etsy for $4.95. Thats the thing with crafting, it costs much more than just buying it (and thats not even compounded with the fact that time is money) but it feels so good to be the creator, it's worth the added effort.
I also told her I'd make all her friends little Dorothy aprons, and after getting the patten and examining it, I had to modify it to a pinking sheered skirt apron. Ten of those turned into another day-long effort. The morning I started to make them, I called my mom who said, "Stop what you're doing and go buy that shit at the dollar store." She let me know, it will end up in the trash regardless of my craftsmanship, to which I had to defend my crafting, and tell her I don't care, I'm making them.
This morning we had to rush to her school for her birthday celebration. We sat perched on teeny tiny plastic chairs, and she circled the sun holding a globe in her hand. After each rotation she told her friends what she did when she was one, two, three and four, and then she told them what she is going to do when she is five.
She told her friends she is going to learn how to read. We've let her know that after she learns to read she will be able to stay up as late as she wants reading her books. Now, she has to rely on one of her parents, and if either of us are in a state of exhaustion, then there is a good chance we'll be snoring in her face before we make it though a three page chapter in The Wizard of Oz.
It timed out perfectly that tonight, on her birthday, we get to read the last three chapters. I'm expecting Dorothy will get to go back to Kansas. The book is so much different than the movie, but equally exceptional. What it lacks in musical genius it makes up for in it's brilliantly spun tale.
They (and by they, I mean Big Hollywood Hot Shots) should stop making every Disney movie into a live-action, and make a live-action of the true Wizard of Oz. Perhaps this is what I can promise for my daughter's sixth birthday.
She won't mind when I can't deliver, because I'll blow the news to her as were adjusting our berets while sitting next to our transportable art easels we've set up along the Seine where we advertise to paint people's spirit animals for three Euro each. Who am I kidding, we'll do that shit for free!
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