Float Like A Butterfly, Take The Bus, Train And Taxi

Continued…

The Miss’ birthday was on a weekday, and it happened that day after school she also had a toddler music class. We didn’t skip anything; while it’s not a super hard and fast rule, wherever possible we avoid the little subliminal message that a means of “celebrating” something is by cutting a class. (Cutting class is not a treat. People singing happy birthday to you in class is a treat.

This is her in standard issue school shirt paired with her favourite skirt getting on the school bus…

Getting to dress in your prized gold lame-lavender skirt (school rules permitting – we put the butterfly wings on after school, just in case) is a treat.

Hence this.

The Miss wanted to traipse about in her wings, sprinkling the proverbial fairy butterfly dust everywhere she went, before going in to toddler music class That Class Where She Will Dive Bomb Me Or Crawl About Screeching At The Top Of Her Lungs Inexplicably Pretending To Be A Cat Under The Pretext Of Dancing To Music.

(To be fair her teacher in this very local music class at Tom Lee is one of those very perceptive people in early education; he adjusts songs and little details in stories and activities very quickly based on the mood of his charges – no mean feat because some of the kids like mine can be very frisky.)

It was a pretty hot day, though.

Unfortunately this day, it was boiling. Seriously boiling. (But she had to be in light longs because of the elastic of the wings cutting into her arms).

Bleah.

(The nice uncle stall keeper let us shelter from the the direct sun in the doorway of his stall; however he was actively hiding every time my iPhone came out :D)

This is her cooling down once she’s on the bus…

And air conditioning deserves a little wave of a wand!

(Yes she has her seatbelt on, adjusted over the wings.)

We enter the train station and…. Hello, what’s this?

No, Miss, no running in this race.

Miss: Can’t run? 

Me: No, darling. You walk in this race.

Miss: Can fly?

Why not.

Can do a little competitor research, too.

And a veggie-mix squeezie…

(Nb: They’re a lot more expensive than just giving her the fruit/veg prepared at home; we use the squeezies to increase the variety of fruits/veggies she takes in, or sneak some of the foods she otherwise wouldn’t eat un-pureed and blended, into her diet.)

But then we start to wilt.

And fuss…

Hurriedly we find more substantial sustenance…

Even the wings come off, we need a break…

(Those wings… trapped many a passing busy waiter in this crowded cafe :D)

Kudos to the wait staff though, because a desperate run to set up potty makes me leave her wand behind. When we go back for it, it takes a few conversations, but a waitress eventually emerges from the back with the cardboard wand. AND they all wish her happy birthday with a smile! Like, wow.

We make it to toddler music class…

Why yes, the wings stayed on until……

The Miss lets everyone have a turn with her wings and wand. Even the boys are rather intrigued.

And so the wand-wielding butterfly called it a day.

Happy Birthday, you insanely loved child. (Not… that lotsa parents love their kids any less insanely, just that you are no less insanely loved, you understand… )

This is her celebrating that morning in school…

And note the bunch of buddies congregating behind her… Can you guess what they’re doing? They were……………..

Tidying up their own remains of the birthday cupcakes – this is the Miss doing the same…

And packing her snack remains…

“Look, Ma – Strawberry cream!”

They’ve learnt to do the Emily-Post-I-Need-A-Tissue thing too…

And that’s all she wrotes.

That’s all their zip-locked snack things, which school attendants will then take outside for a proper tidying, after the toddlers have done what they can on their own…

ps: Even cupcakes are not quite a “treat,” we think of them as an occasional necessity due to social obligations 😀 “I don’t eat cake” in some older kids’ circles seems to be an up-and-coming Cool Thing to say, though – I once heard a whole bunch of pretty little girls skipping around at another party saying proudly, “We don’t eat cake!” (“But we’ll come sing ‘Happy Birthday’). Just so…