I felt a little like this when she turned one. My little baby, a whole year under her belt. The week leading up to that milestone found me an emotional wreck. I was a puddle of myself. And now she's five. Way beyond baby. No longer a toddler. I am the mother of a five-year-old. This is elating and a little heart-wrenching. I'm about to cry right here while typing this.
She's beautiful and amazing and smart and funny. I love that she is always paying attention. She's an observer. A girl after my own heart. She's quirky and always has a story to tell, a song to sing, a dance to perform. She loves to make rhymes. Words are fascinating to her - the way they flow together.
For her birthday we enrolled her in a dance class for the semester. Her Gram and Offey got her the gear. Today was her second lesson, and she was working so hard. [I need to teach her how to skip.] In the last week or so, she has learned how to keep going on a swing. It helps that she now has a swing set in the backyard. She surprises me almost daily with something new she's learned. And I love that she loves to tell me or show me what's new in her world.
Her party was sweet. We had ten kids, including her and Magnolia, in our little Dot, and it was so much fun. They went on a little treasure hunt around our house to collect the four parts needed to make their Magic Rainbow Wands. I would give them a clues, and they would run off in one little clump from place to place trying to find an item in the particular place I was hinting towards. It was pretty comical. One of my clues was really straight forward because I hadn't come up with a clever riddle: "The next part is under the black desk in the dining room and you need to pull the colorful string to get it out." Where did they go? They ran right by the black desk in the dining room to Cora's room. Here they are sitting down to make their wands.
We had rainbow cupcakes. The whole party was a sort of rainbow theme. Cora really loves rainbows and unicorns and fairies (and mermaids and princesses and all of the most girliest of girlie things). And Dora the Explorer. Rather than having a character themed party, we had an explorer theme - hence the treasure hunt. Treasure, rainbows, get it? We got my parents' gift for Cora in the mail three days before her party. We opened it while skyping with them, and I was happy to see a new rainbow shirt. Cora was spotlighted in primary for her birthday, and when I asked her what her favorite color was (it usually goes back and forth between pink and purple) she replied, "All the bright colors." This shirt is perfect.
I don't know at what age children outgrow this, but I love how they all love handing their own present to the birthday girl. I did notice that this year they didn't announce what was inside before it was opened, which was the case when she turned four.
I love these sweet little kid parties. I know that it would be about ten million times easier on me to outsource some of the preparation, and even the location, but there's something so lovely about a special handmade event happening in our home. This will be a fun memory.
Here's a link to How Cora Got Here. And I feel like I know enough new people and have a broad enough audience to explain that the posts just prior to her birth story will be beneficial to understanding some parts of the HCGH post. A quick summation: I went into labor with her at 32 week. They weren't able to stop the labor, but Cora was 1/2 Frank 1/2 footling breech. (One leg was running parallel to her body, the other was tucked underneath her.) She was wedged in my pelvis, so I was dilating very slowly because there was little pressure on my cervix. The time between finding out I was in labor and actually having her was a really strange waiting game. We knew she would need to come via c-section, but knowing the right time to deliver a premature baby who was wedged while her mother's body was doing its best to birth her all came down to how long my body could tolerate being in labor. Three weeks was the answer. And just incase you were wondering, my longest contraction during that time lasted for 7 minutes. I wish I had the print out (I was being monitored when it happened) because I think it might be a record.
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