Half-Birthday Celebration

When your birthday is just before Christmas, as Frances's is, half-birthdays take on a greater importance; and for a while now, Frances has been counting the days until she could officially be four and-a-half (and not allowing anyone to call her four-and-a-half until the magic day arrived).

"Mummy, how old am I today?" she asked me yesterday morning, sitting on the floor in her whale pyjamas, surrounded by Little People.

"You're..." I blinked. "Today is your half-birthday! You are four-and-a-half today!"

"I know!" she said. "Now I am bigger. My hands and fingers are bigger and stronger. And I can run faster!" She got up and ran across the living room and back.

"Wow, look at how fast you are."

"I know! And I can gallop faster!" She galloped across the living room and back, laughing.

"Wow!"

"I am four-and-a-half! I am strong. Look at my muscles!" She flexed her arms. "See?"

"I see!"

"Yay!" She jumped. "Mummy, when is my party?"

"Weeell, see, we only have birthday parties at birthdays, so you will have a birthday party when you turn five."

"Oh. That's a big number."

"Yes. But if you'd like, we can go out for dinner and have a special half-birthday dinner at the restaurant with the M on the door." (Montana's.)

"Can I have cake?"

"Sure. And in a little while, we can go to the flower store and get some petunias for your flower garden. Does that sound good?"

"Yeah." She played for a few minutes. "Mummy, I want Mumms and Grandpa to come to my party."

"OK. Would you like to invite them? I can give you the phone and you can call them and ask."

"Yeah!" This is a girl who frequently refuses to talk to anyone on the phone, her parents included, which is a chore because she is supposed to talk to one or the other of us every night. When I called her at her father's on Friday and asked her what she did that day, all I got from her was 'I don't know!' in a tone mixed of equal parts of exasperation, amusement and impatience. Which was almost all she would say for the entire ten minutes of the call, and that's not unusual. But not yesterday: she took the phone, dialed the number, and when my father answered said, "Hi Grandpa. Would you like to come to my birthday dinner tonight? It's at the restaurant with the M on the door."

After bringing home some purple petunias and a few other plants to round out the containers in the back yard and getting them planted and watered, and chasing her around in a game of camera tag ("you can't take my picture, Mummy! I'm running too fast! Ah! You took my picture! (giggling) I'm going to hide behind this tree, now you can't take my picture .... ah! You took my picture! Can I see?"), we came inside and she took out her craft box full of buttons and glitter glue and scraps of fabric and ribbons and began making presents for her dinner guests.

First she took a boxboard blank christmas ornament and decorated it with christmas glitter glue, scraps of white microfibre and christmas buttons and put it in a cast-off gift bag that otherwise would have gone out with the recycling. Then she made them a thank-you card, and waited impatiently for it to dry after smearing the entire centre with glitter glue. All the while I was making her a card that I didn't let her see, a light pink cardstock card with bright teal-and-pink paper and a bright green four on the front, with "and a half" lettered beside it, and some pretty sequin and felt flowers besides. Then I gave her a bath and trimmed her bangs and dressed her in an orange stripey dress (which she would later lift above her head in the restaurant so Mumms and Grandpa could get a good view of the stripes).

This was followed by a detour to the bookstore. The plan was to let her buy herself one book as a special treat--but--there was a sale, see, buy 3 get the fourth free, so we got four, but they were all small inexpensive books, two of which were Scooby Doo picture books. And then she begged for a little grey stuffed elephant in the lineup which I didn't have the heart to refuse her when it was her half-birthday. And then there was the little fairy toy I snuck on to the pile without her seeing it to surprise her with at the restaurant. And a little notebook with bright flowers on the cover. But your half-birthday only comes once a year. Right?

So: flower store, gardening with Mummy, camera tag, playing, party dress, bookstore with new presents, restaurant with favourite meal, surprises, guests, and home just in time to talk to Daddy on the phone before bed. I think that counts as a pretty good half-birthday.

And I think she agrees.

Posted by Andrea at June 23, 2008 9:54 AM under Beanie Baby Brags

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