Greta's 9th Birthday

Finally, Greta's birthday was yesterday. The two weeks she has to wait after Lucia's birthday always seems to last a hundred years. But today was her day. It was not as I'd planned, for many reasons, too numerous and complex to go into tonight, in a birthday post. 

But it began as our birthdays always do, with a giant 9 balloon, flowers, and two presents at the table when Greta came down in the morning. She requested pancakes with chocolate-chip faces for breakfast. Then the school day began--the kids are doing virtual school for two weeks--and went fine. The kids are really self-sufficient with it and navigate the platforms with ease. They had an exciting morning break, where they opened presents from Gra and Pop-Pop (who'd split their gifts for the kids between the two birthdays). 

While the girls were schooling, I was working on Greta's room revamp--another beautiful transformation, if I do say so myself. There's a reading nook, a canopy over her bed, and lots of cat pictures around. I used a power drill and installed a difficult-to-install mirror. Lucia, during a break, helped me center the canopy while I hung it. 

The watched an episode of Carmen Sandiego after school, while I made dinner. And then--finally!--it was time for gifts. Highlights for Greta were tiny sleeping kittens in slippers (random Amazon find), a little sleeping cat nightlight, socks that make her feet look like paws, and a camping tent for her American Girl dolls. And of course then came the big room reveal--she was thrilled. She had been looking forward to that moment all day.

Last on the birthday schedule--cake and singing. I'd made two worry dolls for the top of her cake, which she was excited about. 

Bedtime came too fast; the girls wanted to just stay up and play. Greta had a great, great birthday, despite the many, many weird parts of today, which I will detail in a future post, just not right now. 

Birthdays are done for another year. These were good ones.