Dragon Party!

After Milo’s birthday party at the zoo—the first time we had ever had one of our kids’ birthday parties outside our home—I was pretty much sold on the birthday-party-elsewhere concept.  Once I found out that the CosmoCaixa (the science museum) did birthday parties, I was sure we were home free.  But no. C.C. wanted a dragon party, and she wanted it at home.  AND she wanted to invite 15 kids.  Given how difficult the adjustment was for her, we sucked it up and agreed.

First, we had to figure out what we were going to do with 17 kids (15 invites plus C.C. and Milo) in our apartment for two hours.  It’s pretty big, but not that big.  I figured we could at least bring in outside entertainment, so I set about calling various magic acts and other children’s entertainers.  One woman I spoke with went on and on about her medical problems, what the doctors had prescribed and how she just didn’t feel up to it.  Others were unreachable.  Finally, I found a guy who did puppet shows, one of which has a dragon in it.  I booked him on the spot.  When I told C.C. about it, she didn’t look completely happy.

“What’s up, bud?  It’s a puppet show; it’ll be great!”

“Well, you know how fairy tales are, right Mom?  The dragons are usually bad guys.  I only want the puppet show if the dragon is a good guy.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

So, I called the puppet guy back, and asked if the dragon was a good guy or a bad guy.

“We can modify it,” he told me. “How about if the dragon starts out bad and becomes good by the end?”

“I think that will be okay,” I said.  “If you have a princess, it’ll be fine if she’s evil or gets killed,” I told him.

Then I found a craft activity—dragon stick puppets—and a dragon cake recipe/plan on the internet.  How did people figure all this stuff out before the web?  Alec was in charge of food, invitations, and tables and chairs.

I woke up yesterday with a full day of work planned—making the cake, prepping the craft, taking the kids out for a movie to get them out of the house for awhile.  While making my morning tea, I grumbled that my muscles felt sore—I figured it was from the yoga class I had taken on Thursday. It had been awhile since I had taken a class, and I don't bounce back the way I used to.  But then, after making the cake layers and inviting Milo’s friend Peter to come with us to the movies, I realized that it wasn’t just too much yoga.  It was the kind of body ache you get with the flu.  Alec had gone to the market and I had promised the kids the movie, so I didn’t feel like I could reneg.  I could snooze during the show if I needed to.

I felt worse and worse, and by the time I got home all I could do was go to bed.  I got up three hours later and dragged my butt into the kitchen to make the frosting and assemble the cake.  I still felt like shit but it had to be done.  And it came out pretty well if I do say so myself.  It was no easy feat finding Fruit Roll-Ups in Barcelona for making the wings.

Then I went back to bed to watch Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and cut out 17 sets of dragon puppet heads and tails while Alec fed the kids and put them to bed.  I slept for 10 hours and felt mostly better this morning, enough to launch into the decorations and clean up the house.  There is nothing like a party to get you to straighten up.  Of course it also means that our “office/art room” has become the place where we stash everything that’s hard to find a place for.  I put a “Do Not Enter” sign on the door and left it at that.

Despite the fact that the electricity went out during the puppet show—meaning they could not use their microphones or their recorded music—the party was a big success.  C.C. wore her Pino’s Pizza shirt (which is about 4 sizes too large) from Brooklyn, and the stuffed dragon tail Milo gave her in the morning.  Oh, and we didn’t time things exactly right.  After the craft, the pizza, the puppet show, and the cake, we still had a half hour until the parents were supposed to come and pick up their little darlings.  We grabbed a couple of oranges and put the kids in two lines, and had them pass the oranges from neck to neck.  Then we played the telephone game, in English and in Spanish, and some musical chairs.  Lesson:  always have some backup games planned.

Tomorrow is C.C.’s actual birthday, so we’ll have a little family celebration then.  And tonight,  I plan to soak in the tub, eat leftover pizza, and read my book.