exhuberation

A fifth birthday party always inspires neologism. And what a wonder it was. The shindig had a dinosaur theme, and from Jacob's first foggy moments when he awoke, he was jazzed and trilling on about the party. He was exhuberating from the break of day. Thank God that at this age they're so delighted to play, so easy to please, and so willing to think you're a such a wonderful parent for trying to delight them.

We spent the weeks prior to the party preparing for it like it was a series of doctoral exams. We made "goody bags" for the kid-attendees. We sewed them with dinosaur fabric that Jacob chose. Into the newly minted dino bags, we put dino "planes," stickers, masks, "shamtoos," puppets, and playsets. We block-lettered each of their names on a little T-shirt, and the kids painted them by dipping little dinosaur shapes in fabric paint and stamping the shirts. That was a hoot. They were going to color in the dino mural we made, but there was too much cake and chaos to do something as quiet as coloring. In the cake picture, which is, of course, a dino scene (wildly mixing up creatures from the cretaceous and jurassic --we didn't have time to research the proper periods, and we could only swipe dinosaurs from Jacob's stash that he wouldn't miss), you can see a T-rex about to devour us. The volcano was made with a bundt pan and a good bit of cake chopping. We also erupted a "real" plaster volcano that we had made before the party. All the kids stood around and cheered like maniacs with each foamy baking-soda-vinegar-red-food-coloring-and-dish-soap eruption. After the sixteenth time, when we smelled like a pickled egg from all the vinegar, we had to move on to a less sinky activity.

Next came the T-rex pinata, which--like all mass-manufactured pinatas--would only have dumped forth its wealth of goodies for Jose Canseco with a steel bat. We had surgically altered the T-rex with a steak knife, so a kid could yank on the right string, the tail would fall off, and VOILA the candy and toys would spill out. At least, this was the theory. Instead, even after we yanked the tail off with a great deal of adult assistance, all the goodies stayed locked up inside (a bit like Jacob's birth story, don't you know), and we ended up going into the "fill pinata here" opening and digging out the prizes and throwing them on the floor. Each kid got to cram his or her hand in for a fistful. That worked, and I'm pretty sure it was less violent than a bat.

Present opening was, naturally, a highlight of the party. Kids are almost as excited to have someone else open their present as to receive one. Almost. So they hover in a knot and experiment with the loot themselves as it's passed around the room. Jacob was charming during the party and today as well. He loved everything: it was the best cake he'd ever tasted, the best candy he'd ever eaten, the coolest batch of presents he'd ever gotten, and the most fun he'd ever had. Mary Tuominen even wore a dino mask and exhuberated with the kids.