Ginnastix

Big Sis had her birthday party at the local gymnastics center. My husband and I stood by while ten sweaty kids looped around us – over barrels, through the foam pit, over the balance beam, down the slide, and back again. Peanut borrowed a leotard, four sizes too big, and did her best to keep up.

As I was packing the car in preparation for the party, Peanut wandered by to inform me that she would be wearing a gin-nas-tix suit for the party so that she wouldn’t get any ginnastix on her. But as it turns out, the place was stinky, smelling just like you might expect from a warehouse-turned-gymnasium (full of mats over which bare kid feet run amok). The two little ceiling fans did their best to spread the feet smell evenly throughout the building. We all ended up with a little ginnastix on us.

But it was worth it. Birthday girl had fun and all the tired babies were in bed by seven. Now that the 2012 round of kid birthdays is in the past, the children have moved on to planning for 2013. There are only 200 days left until KidBirthdays 2013, and the frenzy of planning may not subside. Peanut came down to our room at 5:45 am this morning to ask if it was her birthday yet. She plans to have her party at home. She doesn’t want to invite any people, only stuffed animals and presents. Mister wants to go bowling, with two lanes so that the boys don’t have to bowl with the girls.

All this ridiculous focus on birthdays is silly and wasteful and lovely. I am glad these little people know that we love to celebrate them in ways big and small, that the day they took their first breath was a day the heavens smiled.