Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The Party

Well the day after her actual birthday, Harriet had her much awaited birthday party at the local park. We were up until 1am the night before baking for it (*eep*) , and had mountains of scones (pumpkin, raisin and plain), biscuits (chocolate for the adults and plain), dips with vegies and of course, everyone favourite - fruit kebabs! Being modelled here by the scarred Miss Harry.

Well the face plant story is as follows. The local park is one of the favourite haunts of the mosque at the end of our street. There are some Saturday mornings where it is so busy before 10am that you just don't bother going down there until afterwards. So in order to make sure we secured the little gazebo we wanted, I sent James and Harriet down to the park early on to start putting up the decorations. Well they had been out of the house for about ten minutes when the home phone rang, just as I was about to get into the shower. All I could hear was an almoghty wailing and James' panicked voice saying "Harry's just had a really bad fall off the swing, I think we better come back home". I sigh and say "Ok"...and then they walk in! Oh my god! I swooped up my poor little baby in my arms and she just sat there giving off deep, hitching sobs until she was finally able to take a deep breath and have some boobia. So as all of the early guests arrived they were regaled by my unwashed self sitting plonk down right in the centre of the playroom with a bashed up toddler in my lap and unable to say hello or give them a view of the birthday girl. It was truly tragic.

But Harriet eventually got into the swing of party mode - by the time we made it down to the park she was pretty much right as rain again. She was routinely running down to the river and throwing her sticks and rocks into the river, which is her current favourite activity. James keeps pointing out that her solid side throw is akin to a softball pitcher's (or something, I really don't understand this weird sport-speak he goes on with). But Harriet wasn't particularly interested in paying down at the park or with any of the other children there (except Miss Ruby of course). She kept running away to play on her own.

And as soon as Jo and Isabelle turned up with their present (a doll that was immediately dubbed 'Sleepy Doll'), Harry was then totally focused on spending some quality one-on-one time with her new addition to the family. Here she was taking her over to the water for some quiet boobia. But apparently she was going to keep her top on because it was "too cold for boobia Mama, just pretend".

This ended up being Harry's birthday cake - for her, anyway. When I made the test run of her cake (a low sugar ricotta cheesecake that just happened to be in the SMH a week before her party, thank you Bill Granger) I was so excited because it turned out pretty much spot on, despite our recalcitrant oven. I offered her a small sliver of it and she held it in her mouth for aagggeess. Until finally she spat it out and said emphatically "no birthday cake, corn cake Mama". Ah, she really doesn't have much taste for the sweet stuff. And so she had her much beloved organic corn cakes for her birthday 'cake' instead, while the rest of us ate up big on the cheesecake. I am proud to report that there were only two thin slices left after all was said and done, so I'm imagining that most people liked it (not too many half eaten slices around or in the bin that I spied).

The birthday girl was incredibly spoilt by everyone who came. She was lavished with the most thoughtful and awesome gifts, which were completely unexpected. Her gifts included the aforementioned Sleepy Doll (who has to accompany Doll to bed with us now), an incredible gift bag from Lisa that had a garden set, ladybird bag (that I'm sure Harriet doesn't want and requires a more...uhmm..'mature' home - nudge nudge wink wink), book set, book, large fish puppet from Sam, a gorgeous cardigan, books galore, two homemade dresses (!!!), Little People plane, dress up doll with outfits, puzzle, Spanish memory cards...oh look, I really shouldn't have started listing them because there were seriously wayyyy too many to list and they are all incredibly thoughtful and each was just so perfectly considered for the little person that Harriet is.
I guess that was what really struck me during the party - just how much people seemed to genuinely love and care for Harriet. We even had people who don't have children out, in public, socialising in a park before 12pm on a weekend! *shock* But she really is just her own little person, and regardless of who we know and how we know them, Harry is starting to develop her own relationships with others independently from us. It's beautiful to see - at one stage I looked up from talking to Lisa and saw that behind her was James, over to my left was Harry's Nana and Grandpa and...no Harry to be seen! I then looked over at the playground where Miss Harriet was playing with Georgia over on the bouncy toy, happy as - well, as happy as Harry. When James asked her who her best friend is she answered "Georgia". Awwww..... In this photo she had taken me across to the adjacent gazebo so that she could have a look inside Sleepy Doll's ear with her 'otoscope' (aka a stick). Her recent interest lies in the doctor's profession, and she loves having all of her dolls and teddies look with 'otoscopes', 'thalmascopes' and 'tethascopes' as she looks in their ears, eyes and listens to their hearts. It is very cute and I must admit to being quite bemused at people being surprised at her walking around proudly proclaiming "Otoscope look Doll's ear - red and sore".

At the end of the morning it was time to do some serious pigeon chasing with Grandpa as the sky rats descended on our clean up operations. She was so excited to run around and spend time with Nana and Grandpa, but I don't know how happy the pigeons were about it. She ended up having a sleep for a couple of hours after her huge morning, and then the festivities didn't end there.
Our gorgeous friend Jodie and her son Xavier had flown up that morning from Wodonga. Poor Xavier (and of course Jodes too)had been up since 5am, but he still managed to soldier on in a thoroughly good mood for a dinner out on King St. Harriet is in LOVE, she and Xavier were truly complementary in their play and loved running up and down the road together, then running inside together playing the work/home game and just generally playing beautifully together. He is so adorable, the most gentle little soul and an incredible runner! We think he was giving Harry some tips because her running style has improved since his visit. And although I keep writing about it and thought that there would be more than enough warning on this blog, Jodes was still amazed at how much Harry talks! I tell you people, the girl is a conversationalist, she just doesn't shut up.
Will be back in soon to let you know about our other adventures in Harryland. We haven't even touched on the dollhouse yet!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We had a great day at Harriets party ! Hope you all have recovered ? What a laid back morning and no rain ! Harriet was an incredible trouper for coping with the "incident" and soldering on, we are very proud of you 2 year old Harriet !!
All the toddlers were sooooo cute especially the little red head girl who I wanted to take home & the golden baby boy who dug Sam's trumpet playing ooooh so cute !!
Red Heads Rock
xx Lisa & Sam