6th Birthday of the Little Grenouille

The Birthday Girl

She is our only little girl. Born under the same Chinese Horoscope sign as her papa. The apple of his eye. And she knows it.

When she was born, Hub came back home early almost every evening so that he could bathe her himself. When we went out, he would carry her in the baby carrier chest to chest. He often dozed off with her in his arms. He thinks that she is the prettiest, most intelligent little girl around and is always showering her with kisses. He chose her name himself. And we nicknamed her La Grenouille when she was in the womb as she was moving quite a bit (even then).

And she turned 6 yesterday. Weighs 27kg (overweight!) and measures 122cm. Hard to believe that she used to fit into the washbasin for her bath (yes, I was that much of a cheapskate, my children never had any of the fancy baby stuff when they were babies, we've always made do).

The Coffee Cake

This year we celebrated her birthday at the Japanese restaurant in Maranello. Sushi, makis, teppanyakis, udon soup, tempuras...and a beautiful coffee cake from the best pastry shop in Formigine that nobody ate because it contained too much alcohol.

Opla!

The next day, she had her party at Opla. Invited the whole class (the largest in the school) plus JM and JX who due to an accident had not left Italy then. I know that I've sworn last year never to do a party at Opla again. Head's still ringing after celebrating Eldest Son's 11th Birthday there. But it was difficult saying no to the little one. Added to the fact that if I were to hold the party at home, it would probably be destroyed before the end of the afternoon.

With JM and Baby Boy

Opla's actually not so bad on a weekday. For some reason they left out the horrible music so it was quieter than usual. And it was nice seeing now familar faces among the mothers who stayed on and we had a good chat. The ice cream cake was good (it was from Slurp! - supposedly the best gelateria in Modena) and the kids wiped out the cheese puffs, popcorn, soft buns stuffed with nutella. I had ordered too much pizza though.

The Birthday Cake

Baby Girl received lots of nice presents. Though she is already a very lucky girl who has more than what she needs, she was genuinely happy to be given new toys etc and took her time to open and enjoy every one of them the way I had advised her to. At some point during the party I asked myself if she wasn't old enough to learn to share what she had e.g. give away her presents to some charity - but I didn't have the heart to do so knowing how much she truly appreciates her gifts. Besides, we do not know what the future holds, times are hard and will become harder. I should just let her enjoy herself while she could.