A birthday tale

Whisking up cupcakes for daycare

 Birthdays are big deals for kids, from the moment they have said goodbye to the last sticky faced guest, they are  considering who might make next years cut for the invite list.  This list chops and changes over the year, but is never forgotten.  Being invited to a birthday party at 4 is akin to being nominated for an academy award.  Our girls are checking the calendar daily to see how close their big day is, and they can  both recite the family birthday order (and do several times a week): "mummy then kate then daddy then luke.."

telling me who each cupcake is for...

 So when Kate turned 4 yesterday, it was a pretty big moment for our middle child.  She got the limelight for a day, although Jaimee tried very very hard to make it all about her.  From the moment our beaming big 4 year old came quietly into our room in the morning with a shy grin on her face (I-can't-believe-its-actually-my-birthday-today), our 5 year old was a mess.  With loud wails and lots of tears streaming, Jaimee announced at the top of her voice "I....I....I....I'm Jealooooouuuuuuusssss", before stomping loudly away.   The girls are so so ultra close, they normally do everything together, and birthday's can be quite a rude shock in their world.  How dare they have SEPARATE birthdays? How rude and inconvienient for the other child!  Poor Kate had to put up with this all day.  From packing up the treats for daycare (more wails that she wanted to go to daycare too) to opening presents (sniffing - "can i pass them to Kate") - Jaimee had to announce her jealous streak. Sigh.  At least she can name her emotions...

Luckily, Kate is used to her dramatic big sister, and didn't let it worry her one bit.  She had a fabulous day, strutting around with a massive HAPPY BIRTHDAY ribbon pinned to her chest for all to see.  Carrying on a tradition from when I was young, the birthday girl got to choose what we had for dinner.   I remember asking for scalloped potatoes with lamb chops.  My kids are much smarter - why didn't I consider asking for McDonalds as a child?!

This morning we had a bit of a situation on our hands.  As I was dressing Luke, Kate came in holding a pair of crisp white leggings and asked if she could please wear them to daycare as she couldn't find a pair in her daycare drawer.

I told her to go look for her older white leggings, I was sure they were in the drawer.  Kate burst into tears.  With tears streaming down her cheeks, she came back into the room with the correct pair of leggings.  "I don't want to wear these ones" she sobbed to me.   Being an adult, I had no idea what the problem was - they were both white leggings right?!

Wrong.

After more tears and coaxing (and finally, firmly telling her she must wear the older ones to daycare) I managed to get out of her what the problem was - the older leggings  had the number 3 on them....and the newer leggings clearly state a proud number 4 on the tag!  No way could she wear number 3, she is a big 4 year old now!!  I melted....she was in such a state over this, it was quite cute how she had thought the whole thing through.

My beautiful 4 year old

A big cuddle, a bit of explaining and assuring that mummy certainly does not wear the number 30 clothes, and Jaimee still wears lots of number 4 clothes.....and Kate was able to put on the older leggings without fear of suddenly turning back into a little 3 year old.

Now, If only the weather report is completely wrong so that we can have her party tomorrow at the park rather then host 15 preschoolers in my house.....all will be right with the world!