How a Princess Welcomes 4

This is slightly overdue (OK, go with it). After a long, looooooong, LONG buildup, Sabrina’s birthday party was finally upon us. I sweated over the details until I couldn’t stand myself any longer, threw up my hands, and realized I just want to make a bunch of little girls happy. And a boy, who got shipped off to spend the day with his grandparents.

The guests began arriving in their princess finery, and I was so happy to see a nice mix of non-Disney and Disney frocking. I greeted each one as she arrived, I myself decked out in fanciness (read: an old bridesmaid dress, wide-brimmed Southern belle hat, and bunny slippers) and showed her where to select a crown and princess wand of her own, which she could take home (yay for costume and party favor combos). And then of course, because we’re talking small children, all amounts of chaos broke loose and I was hard-pressed to keep any sort of plan together. Oh well, go with the flow.

Please note that Hub also stepped up to the plate by dressing as Prince Charming. What a sport. Also, we were so hot, both because we’re, of course, hot, and because those costumes were boiling.

Once, I think, everyone was here, I ushered them into the kitchen for the tea party portion of the day. I also told the moms (and dads, who just so happened to be my brother, brother-in-law, and nephew-in-law) there was a spread just for them in the dining room (read: copious amounts of alcohol involved because I know how to win people’s hearts). But moms being moms, everyone squished into the kitchen (which seemed to shrink rapidly at that point) to take pictures and check out the cacophony.

For those interested, here’s how the menu(s) played out. For the girls, I served Princess Punch, a mixture of berry lemonade and 7Up, and a selection of tiny sandwiches, including peanut butter and jelly (or just jelly for the peanut-challenged), grilled cheese, and cucumber cream cheese. Surprisingly (or maybe not), I think I could have gotten away with just grilled cheese. Anyway, after that came the petits fours, for which I’d searched high and low and of which I was very proud. I may have cried when I started clearing dishes and found so many with just tiny nibbles gone. And because you can never have enough sugar, I busted out the princess birthday cake I handcrafted (doesn’t that sound fancy?) with the help of Betty Crocker or Pillsbury or somebody like that. Ice cream, too. For the adults, I laid out curried chicken salad sandwiches, blueberry and white chocolate sweet rolls (thank you, Choosy Beggars), and cheesecake (which I totally didn’t make because I was tired, so thanks for the contribution, Dad), alongside iced tea and Queenly Punch made of cranberry juice and sparkling wine (or, you know, just the wine).

Once the sugar was being absorbed nicely into juvenile bloodstreams, we moved to the activity portion of the party, which I’d like to call Get Your Pent Up Aggressions Out by Beating the Heck Outta a Pinata. And that they did. Seriously, it was the best piñata beating I’ve ever seen. Each girl got a good number of swings at the thing, and then Sammy, who’d come with my folks to check out the festivities (and man, do I wish I had video of his entrance, when he took in 15 swirling princess girls and just exclaimed “Oh my goodness!” in the best 7 year old mix of astonishment and fear), stepped in the whack that mother into submission. Instead of screaming and hair pulling followed by crying, everyone nicely gathered their own little sampling of the candy that had fallen and nobody got upset. That’s a miracle right there.

We came back inside for the 35 second opening of the gifts. I really don’t remember much of it except a tornado of tissue paper and a throng of girls in tulle descending on pink boxes and bags, and I just did my best not to get trampled and write down who brought what. It was truly the scariest 35 seconds of the day (clocked).

My favorite part came next. Sabrina came up to me, lower lip beginning to quiver, and said, “But Mommy, we didn’t get to DANCE!” Well. I did not realize a dance segment was in order, but I fixed that tout de suite. I whipped on some music station playing High School Musical or Hannah Montana or something equally soul crushing and let them have at it. It was adorable.

And so the princesses began making their exits, and we began the monumental task of cleaning everything up. A weather-born tornado actually ran through our neighborhood 3 days later, but a girling dervish had whipped things up but good that afternoon. But that’s the sign of a good party, right?

I think I was totally justified in eating cake for dinner that night.