Kidarama '08

We had a big party on Sunday for Marcus and Michael's birthdays. Michael's was way back on Jan 24, when we were camping, and Marcus' was Feb 28. Michael was dead against having any kind of party (whereas Marcus started planning it about 363 days before). We pressed him to name someone he would like to invite. The only person he would name was Sienna, who used to be in his room at daycare. We tracked her down and she was available. We also had a few family buddies with kids, the neighbours, my Mum and Dad, and kids from school that Marcus invited. Something like 15 kids all together. Elf worked very hard on the food, and I made the birthday cake (same choc cake as I made Elf, deeee-licious).

We had a treasure hunt, which always take a lot of organising. Every kid had three clues that ended by sending them up the back to the reserve, to find a bag with their name on it next to one of my giant metal letters.

We had a game which basically was throwing water-balloons at me as I ran about in a stupid hat (they mostly bounced off me and broke on the grass). We had a colouring-in wall which Elf set up. Four thicknesses of newsprint, five feet deep and about 20 feet long. I drew outlines of a monkey, snake, giraffe, some trees, elephant, dinosaurs, er, bees, a volcano...an aeroplane (I was getting desperate). It was pretty well patronised, and there was some very creative colouring in. Then we had pin-the-tail-on-the-giraffe.

Everyone had a pretty good time and there were no dramas. Sienna and Michael really enjoyed being back together - they go to Friends on different days now. She is very verbal like him, and I can see that they would have gravitated to each other. Sienna's mum Nina says that Sienna came home sounding out letters, and reported that Michael was teaching her how to read.

Marcus's main present from us was the bike I mentioned the other day. The day before the party we took it up to the Domain, and he rode it around on the smooth concrete top of the big water tanks. Next week coming up is Ride to School Day, and we are hoping that with another practice session this weekend Marcus will be feeling confident enough to join in with that.