Thursday 13, Daughter's Birthday Party Edition

I usually don't talk about my children, but this last week was so much fun that I wanted to share it with you. My daughter turned 10 on Saturday. What she wanted more than anything else was to take her friends to Build-a-Bear. Three of her friends came along and we had a wonderful time. Here are 13 reasons I will always treasure that day.

1. I got to watch young ladies shop. We didn't do the organized party at Build-a-Bear. Instead, I gave each a dollar limit and told them we had all the time in the world. I then let them do what they wanted. For an hour and fifteen minutes they shopped. I hadn't given them a huge budget, about enough for a bear, an outfit and maybe one accessory if they were thrifty.

2. They never got bored or argued with each other. They kept coming up to one another with delighted expressions, showing each other what they had found.

3. One girl needed an extra dollar to buy a shirt for her bear. She came and asked me for more money. I gently turned her down. My daughter put something back and gave her one of the dollars she was going to spend. I was so proud!

4. The three girls we had invited delicately told my daughter to go away for a minute. I saw them conspiring together at one of the accessory racks. They then motioned for me to come over. They had pooled their money together and wanted me to secretly buy a little stuffed cupcake with the words "Happy Birthday" written on it for my daughter. It was such a beautiful thing to see! We managed to buy the cupcake and my daughter never saw it at all.

5. The girls were all very different, but got along well. Two were glamor girls who talked about shopping at The Limited and Abercrombie, one was a soccer player and avid reader and my daughter is a bit of a tomboy.

6. I learned a lot about the kids in 4th grade. Because of the differences between the girls, as I listened to the conversation in the car I got a sense of what everyone in school was interested in. It was a great cross-section of the class.

7. I had not restricted my daughter from inviting anyone. She chose three very polite girls. It was a pleasure to be with them.

8. My daughter has fallen behind in her reading assignments, but is now catching up. In conversation, they discussed schoolwork and my daughter said that she wasn't very smart. All three immediately piped up and told her that wasn't true and that she was very smart indeed. I wanted to hug them.

9. When we opened presents, I got to see the girls excitedly give my daughter the cupcake. That was one of the biggest hits of the party.

10. The girls all slept over. I tried to give them no time limit, but at midnight I finally had to come in and get them to go to sleep. I had figured they would poop out on their own, but they were having too much fun.

11. I let the girls have their sleep over in the game room. That turned out to be a huge hit and my daughter has decided that all future sleep overs should be held there rather than her bedroom. This is fine with me since there is less mess to be made there.

12. In the morning, the girls were all still friends. That may not seem like much, but there are always those sleep overs where you discover that while 2 hours with a certain person is fun, at about 2 hours and 15 minutes they become totally obnoxious and you just want them to go home. These four did great the whole time.

13. There were lots and lots of smiles.


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