Gingerbread House

My house turned into a Funhouse today, with four wild children scrambling around. They started out calmly and quietly and planned and organized their house with much discussion. Once they put the house together, they spent a very short space of time decorating, and were running up and down the stairs playing hide and seek for the rest of the evening. Marius covered his gingerbread man with candy all over; the girls were more selective. Tara used to spend so much more time planning and designing and decorating and tasting her gingerbread house. We would often make more than one together, and with Maya, we would each have one to put together. Emily and Belina and Maya were simply more interested in playing together and the gingerbread house was just an excuse to do so.

We fed them pasta after they had all eaten most of the candy meant for the gingerbread house. Daphne came by to pick her children up, but ended up staying and eating and suddenly we were organizing a surprise birthday party for Maya. Dec 17 is a half day of school, and I will pick Maya up and go for lunch. Daphne will have Maya's school friends show up at her house at 1:30 and Maya and I will arrive at 2 PM to visit Belina, and instead, the group of girls will scream and shout and blow streamers and noise makers to celebrate her arrival. Maya knows nothing. She has not expressed interest in a party. Her original plan was to take a few friends to New York for the weekend and see a show. Only Belina can make it to New York for the weekend, so we are driving up after Maya's performance at Peabody on Saturday, stay at a nice hotel and will go to TKTS for tickets to a musical. I had suggested all sorts of ideas for a party and Maya has rejected all. She wants to go to a farm for an overnight and horsebackriding, but I did not put that together, so I wasn't sure if the weekend to New York was enough. Now that the party is happening, I am relieved that we will be celebrating the eventful day with a party!