5 about turning 10

 Lil Momma turned 10 at the end of August and it was a wild whirlwind of weather and a party!

One I was honestly dreading the party even before the weather turned against me. LM had asked for a party in 3 parts: crafts, cake, and firepit/dance party with s’mores. She also very much wanted to fill up the invite list with 10 friends (because she was turning 10) and many of them had not been to our house before which means their moms had not been to our house before and it all was just SO MUCH for my brain to handle. 

 

Two LM and I had a prep day where we went adventuring to find supplies for the crafts, decorations, and cake embellishments. We landed on making beaded bracelets (which were easy to prep as there where kits and extra beads to pick from) and these canvas stars which we bought letter stickers for so the girls could color around the sticker of their first initial and then peel it off (it sounded like a thing!). For her decorations, she went with tie-dye, which we found for short money at a 5 Below, which set us up for the tablecloth, photo wall, and plates. She had asked for a yellow cake with chocolate frosting decorated in a mosaic style (sigh), so I bought some white chocolate rounds to try and “tile” the cake with in a mosaic-style (this was a little questionable of a plan, in hindsight).

 

Three The week before the party, the forecast began looking dire. Rainfall (and a lot of it) was on the way that Friday afternoon and my mood quickly fell along with the forecast. I was mostly ok with having the party outside and all the kids running around and their parents seeing my unweeded gardens – but the idea of everyone being INSIDE MY HOUSE?!?!?! Suffice it to say, the week of the party was full of stress cleaning, quiet weeping between meetings, and attempts at lowering LM’s s’more/firepit expectations. But, we moved forward: I baked the cake and left it to decorate when I got out of work the day of the party. We found a place for the photo wall. We borrowed a table and reconfigured the kitchen so all the girls could sit together. THE PARTY WAS A GO! (sob, sniffle)

 

Four The day of the party, I finished work at lunch and immediately made my buttercream and frosted the cake. From there, I froze; what was I even doing trying to mosaic a design on the fly?!?! But, there was no time to pause – I made a choice and ran with it. 

 

From there, everything FLEW: LM came home from school and got into her party shirt. We set up the bracelets. We ordered the pizzas. We wondered if the moms would stay…. AND THEY DID! It was wild. The kids intensely made bracelets and traded them. When we switched to the canvas stars, I was so glad the moms stayed because the letter stickers I had bought turned out not to be stickers at all, they were iron on things?!?! But the adults came together and we traced them onto the stars and the party kept humming. 

At the end, we bought the right amount of pizza and there was not a crumb of cake left, but everyone said it was delicious (and, luckily, were too full for s’mores!).

 

3 hours of chaos, but my girl felt loved and celebrated and her little extra-extrovert cup was filled!

 

Five Friends, I have a ten-year-old. I have been a parent for ten years. I am shook. I am so proud of Luke and me and as always, awed by my girl becoming this specific, amazing, and complex human she’s becoming. But, I’m simultaneous realizing that she needs me differently now (even if she’s a stage 5 clinger since school started) and it’s time to figure out who I am in this world of having a big kid and being my own person who gets to be specific and complex, too, and maybe even a little amazing ❤

 

Are you a birthday party person like my kid or a quiet dinner with some favorite people like me?