Now I Want Some Cake

photo by Melissa Esplin

This weekend I thought about birthday parties a lot...specifically the birthday we'll be throwing for our turning-three daughter.  Her last one was purple because she was obsessed with the color in a way that I thought was super strange for a kid.  She started pointing out purple things (and only purple things) when she was like 18 months old, and she'd pick out purple crayons or toys and get very excited. Weird and adorable, right?

She's over purple these days, though, so I asked her what color* she wanted her party to be this year, and she said white.  Then black.  Then she changed it to pink.  Now she adds colors all the time and talks obsessively about her birthday cake.  Like, she'll see a bus and say, "That's yellow....I want YELLOW on my birthday cake too!" So it looks like we might be doing a rainbow party this year.  We'll do these streamers because, well, they're awesome and perfect.  And maybe they'll help me feel less lame for doing a rainbow party. Or am I allowed to inflict a certain color on her because she's only three and not the boss of me?**

photos by Paul Ferney for Oh Happy Day

*Annilygreen Parenting Tip:  Do color themes for parties!  They're super easy to decorate for--high impact with minimal effort--and the party stuff tends to be more reusable than, say, princess plates. Plus you can have sort of weird-for-parties food or foods that don't necessarily go together but are easy....because they match the theme.


**She's totally the boss of me.