Thursday, September 27, 2012

happy birthday oona bean!

I can't believe my little Beanie is seven. It seems like just yesterday she was in her crib scrunching her legs up and arching her back as she wiggled around while sleeping so that she looked like a little bean and thus her nickname was established. I frequently call her Bean, Beanie or Oona Bean, never Oona Beanie for some reason, it just sounds like heresy to me. She asked to sleep in my bed last night so she could be with like she was on the night she was born, bright and early at 3:16 am. We celebrated her birthday before school with a donut lit with seven slender pink candles on it.
Since Oona isn't with me tonight so I made her a celebratory breakfast with a birthday donut
I stopped by her school to serve brownies and cookies to her class. This serving the kids treats for her birthday didn't go off as seemlessly as last year. I let the secretary know my plan and asked her to check with Oona's main teacher, I heard nothing until I was called at quarter past two when the secretary called and asked if I could come in tomorrow. Um no because I'm working and it also won't be my daughter's birthday then. So then the she asked if I lived close by and would be able to come over now. So I drive over only to find Oona in art class and the teacher less than welcoming of me, the brownies, and cookies. Oona's music teacher took me down to Oona's main teacher to see if we could serve them down there. No go. Back upstairs and the art teacher said the children could get some treats right before class ended and they had to go to gym.
Oona shows  off her first present
So I took out my Christmas napkins (sad I know but for whatever reason I have an abundance of Christmas napkins) and started doling out brownies and chocolate chip cookies. The cookies looked awful, they were flat but they tasted good. I lost half of my second batch of brownies to a fracture, it was like the San Andreas fault of baking, when I turned over the pan they were in. I don't know that that batch was thoroughly cooked anyway so I guess it was no great loss- especially since I can quickly envision worst case scenarios, I saw myself having to explain how a class had succumbed to salmonella due to my not thoroughly cooked brownies. What would the headline be? Mom Sickens School would probably be sensational enough for TV. I was silently lamenting how pitiful my birthday treats for Oona's class looked when I heard the music teacher walking behind me with an older student, 'Look at that. She is on top of it. Supermom.' Perspective changes everything. They weren't aesthetically pleasing, but the kids ate everything I gave them and quite a few wanted seconds. I didn't have enough for everyone so I said we couldn't do that. As far as I know at 9:18 pm, no one got sick. I let all the kids choose what they wanted and it was pretty much a fifty fifty split with the cookies and brownies, and then I brought the leftovers to my neighbors house with the caveat that the 7 brownies on the last layer closest to the plate might be a wee bit underdone. To which my neighbor replied, It's never good when somebody brings you food over and they're apologizing. Mom Sickens Neighbors! story on eleven at eleven. I might not be the best cook but I don't think that makes me a bad Mom, although with the pervasive foodie culture, I sometimes feel scrutinized as though I'm feeding my kids a steady diet of ho-ho's, coke and cheetos (for the record, no) because my culinary skills are, shall we say, lacking.
Owen deciding whether he's interested in Oona's present
I love Oona Bean for her endless enthusiasm, for her love of everything girly (she got a fancy leopard dress and black patent little heels with her birthday gift card to The Children's Place from Grandma Cat and she's dying to wear this ensemble to dress down day tomorrow at her school), for all the delightful drawings she makes, for her singing all the time, for her missing Grandpa Boo, Lily and Frodo, for how much she loves her brother and most of all, for her just being her lovely, slightly wild, self.
Rock & Runway was a hit with Oona, and surprisingly, Owen as well

2 comments:

Andy Parker said...

Oona is seven! That's fabulous. Seven seems so long ago. I can't remember her brother being the size she is now, though of course he was.

I like the way "the San Andreas fault of baking" played in my imagination. I had a cake break apart like that once. Just awful. In my case it was, "Dad serves Crumbled Cake for dessert, details at eleven." The kids were asking for seconds, Oona was all smiles, and that's what matters. Well done.

sew nancy said...

Happy Birghday Oona!