Party like it’s 1979

It is, suddenly, fall.  My Manitoba maple tree has yellowed overnight, it seems, football has taken over Sundays, and the mornings are very crisp and chilly.  Although I cheerfully discuss with the children all the wonderful things to look forward to in every season, during the fall I very much mourn the end of summer.  This summer in Calgary has been one for the record books, I think, it has been really unusually sunny and warm.  It’s been perfect.  

Fall, to me, is the chilly, windy precursor to a long, long winter.  I like colourful leaves, apples, and back-to-school as much as the next person, but I long for that summer warmth.  Perhaps if I lived in a different climate, I would feel differently.  But this summer has been great, and this weekend was sunny and warm.  I am especially thankful for this beautiful weekend, not just because it is one more weekend to wear my summer clothes and sandals, but also because yesterday was Jake’s birthday party!  And I will say this: the party was a huge success.  We walked the kids over to the playground – sidestepping a dead squirrel on the sidewalk – where they made up their own game pretending to be various Pokemon characters, which carried over into our backyard.  Cupcakes, chips, and water guns filled the rest of the time, and all the little guests seemed very happy.  Wet and dirty, but happy.  One boy very gratifyingly told me that my cupcakes are the highlight of our birthday parties.  “They’re just so amazing!” he enthused.  Aw. 

All in all, a great time with minimal effort on my part.  I have never been good at organizing party games or activities, and so the fact that they largely entertained themselves was pretty fantastic.  Jake had a great day and his actual birthday is not for another week!  We should have a pretty good case of birthday fatigue on our hands by the time next weekend rolls around.

Jake himself has attained minor celebrity at school for being the kid who got barfed on, which I find simultaneously hilarious and revolting.  “What was it like?” a boy asked him, to which Jake worldly answered “You don’t want to know!  It was horrible!”  He later told me he is getting weary of talking about it.  It’s the price of fame, I guess.