Parties everywhere

Yesterday was a busy party day. First, we had a lunch holiday party at work for which I volunteered to make my quiche.

Then as we were dropping Ivan at daycare on Wednesday, we learned that daycare was having a holiday party for kids and parents between 11:30-1 p.m., in other words, the most inconvenient middle of the day time. And if we wanted to, we could bring something too, the invitation read.

So we pondered. Should we go or not? Do other parents go? The timing was kind of inconvenient, etc... Will Ivan be more upset when he sees us come and leave him? Or would be he more upset if he sees other parents but not his own.

In the end we decided to go. I also decided to make lemon cupcakes, a recipe from my baking book. It was the first time I was going to make these cupcakes (although as I'm beginning to notice, all these cookies, muffins, cupcakes and cakes appear to be variations on the same butter, sugar, flour and egg theme.). So on Wednesday night, I cooked and baked, both the quiche and the cupcakes. They both turned out surprisingly well, the cupcakes at least. I found them rather tasty. The quiche I didn't get to taste because I skipped my work party in favor of Mr. Meh's daycare gig, but by the time I returned to work, the quiche platter was empty, so I assume people found it tasty.

I was glad we went to Ivan's party. All other parents showed up as well. (This was one of our concerns. Do parents really show up, or ignore the invite because of the party's inconvenient timing. Maybe, it's just me, the selfish one, who works far and for whom this presented a conundrum. Who knows.)

The party was fun. Ivan was thrilled to see us. I arrived first (luckily for me I had my parents' car so I could schlep myself around.) When I got there most other parents were there mingling with their kids. Ivan was standing by himself next to the bookshelf. He gave me the biggest smile when he saw me.

Then we sat down to eat. He had already half eaten his lunch. But I went to get some lunch. Other people brough food, or maybe it was the daycare ladies who had prepared everything. I don't know. When I left the classroom, Ivan freaked out and followed me to the food tables...and that's when he saw ...the brownies. Several different pans of brownies. To prevent him from touching every single brownie, I put a big one on the plate and we returned to the classroom to eat.

Since he was scarfing down that brownie, I decided to help him out and eat some as well. That way he'll eat less of the brownie. "Wrong thinking, mama!" After he saw me put the last two brownie pieces in my mouth, he said "nem" and proceeded to run out of the room to the brownies stand to get more brownies.

Later, when Andy arrived, he said that Ivan decided to feed him food of his place. Dadda was fed mac and cheese, while Ivan fed himself another brownie.
Later Andy and Ivan shared a cupcake. While we had all ODed on sugar, we had to try the cupcakes. After all I made them.

In terms of the party, it was really nice to see all the kids and their parents and to see the teachers. Jade was there with Isabella. I'm glad we went. It was lots of fun and it gave us a slighly better picture of the daycare. We also talked a bit more with Ms. Yvonne, his teacher. She told us who he likes to play with (Sashi, who's apparently a boy, not a girl like we thought. They should really trim the boy's long tresses; and Erica, a cute little girl.) She also told us he loves to look at the microwave, which is at his eye level. The teacher laughed because she remembered that I told her that he loves appliances.

Then as I was leaving, Ivan started crying and clinging onto me although Andy was with him. But, he had apparently calmed down by the time Andy was about to leave. There were still tears but not the temper tantrumy ones. I have no clue how Ms. Yvonne, the teacher, got the kids to nap after all that sugar.

When Andy went to pick him up in the evening, Ivan was fine. He was playing and wasn't crying. This made us feel better, because taking him to daycare this week was really hard.

On Tuesday, he started crying as soon as we pulled up in front of the building. On Wednesday, he started crying when he saw me pick up his lunch bag in our kitchen, before we even left the house. On Thursday, Andy took him by himself and said he was crying a lot.

So it was good to see daycare in action as it helped us assuage our fears and feelings of guilt for putting Ivan in daycare.