Michael's Birthday Party

Well, it was another busy week for us in the count-down before Christmas.

Michael's basketball team met twice during the week for practice, then competed in a tournament Saturday in Roberts. His team played St. Croix, Prescott, and New Richmond.

Jon was home early enough Friday to take him to one practice and accompany him the following day to his tournament.

Meanwhile, Leila and I spent the day escorting Emma around to parties. First she went to a Girl Scout Christmas party, where she got to make pretzels and ornaments and play sing-along games.

Then she went to a birthday party for one of her Eau Claire friends, and was able to visit with many old classmates from Longfellow (most of whom she hadn't seen since we moved).

This morning Emma put Leila on the wooden sled we got from Sally years ago (when Michael was a baby). I store this sled with our Christmas things and only pull it out once a year... therefore it's still in very good shape. Emma put pillows and blankets on it, so it would be comfy for Leila, and pushed her around on our living room carpet. Leila seemed to enjoy the changing scenery around the living room.

We decided to be cute and pose Leila by a big snowgirl doll that Grandma Jane made us one year. As you can see, the snowgirl is still quite a bit larger than Leila.

Today we had a birthday party for Michael, who turns 10 this coming Thursday. The party was for friends, and we had it on the weekend before his birthday so that Jon could be around (to help, but also to watch Michael interact with his friends).

The party went well. It's gratifying to see how far Michael's come in his ability to socialize with children his own age. Despite being relatively new to Colfax, he's built up a group of friends here and seems able to express himself pretty naturally around them.

We noticed that many of the friends are also Minnesota Viking fans. We wonder if this Viking fan thing has anything to do with the fact that the "viking" is Colfax's school mascot.

We played Bingo for prizes (that was a hit-- all the kids seemed to like Bingo). Then we drew numbers to determine "swinging order" for kids to take a turn at knocking down a pinata. Each child was blindfolded, spun around 5 times and pointed in the general direction of the pinata, then given 10 seconds to knock the pinata down. I think it got as far as child #6 before the pinata spilled open, and the great scramble for candy and toys began.

Michael had wanted a Mexican theme for his party, so we served tacos for lunch. We followed that up with cake and ice cream, then let the kids "free play" for the rest of the time. They spent most of the free time playing hide and seek in our house; they really seemed to get a kick out of our greenhouse area and all the closets and cubbies we have.

I enjoyed the chance to meet Michael's friends and get to know them a little better. One of Michael's female friends, a tall girl named Erin, came to the party and played a couple of games of chess with Michael. Michael had told me that some of his friends at school were girls; I think they enjoy that Michael likes playing quietly and isn't as rough as some of the boys.

Michael told me (and one of the other boy's moms said she understood this to be the case, as well) that this group of boys kind of formed when some of the boys decided that they no longer wanted to get beat up playing football at recess. Originally all of the Colfax boys in Michael's grade played football at recess (and when we first moved here, Michael was one of them). But a couple of the boys play very rough and it was becoming common for the games to become somewhat of a beating for the smaller, less aggressive boys. One by one they started dropping out of the games, and gradually started banding together to find other (less painful) games to play at recess.

There's still a hardcore group of boys that play football at recess, and no doubt they will be very good football players someday. But I'm glad that Michael has found a different niche for himself.

Now that this party's over, I feel like I can concentrate on Christmas! I'm excited to have my family over for the holiday, and often think (when I see Leila smile or "talk" or do something new) how great it will be for big sister Susan to see that, soon. I was so touched to see how Susan opened her heart to little Leila and loved her up during that week in the spring when she stayed with us. She really seemed to cherish and enjoy her.

And as Leila's wispy, light brown hair fills in and her blue eyes watch me, she reminds me more and more of a little Susan all the time. Although sometimes she juts her jaw out in a certain, stubborn way, and kind of reminds me of her cousin Beth Bragg (minus the tumble of pageant-worthy curls). But you can judge for yourself who Leila resembles when you come visit!