Joe and Clara Jane: Joe's Fifth Birthday Bash

Fans we are behind in our reporting. We are still very much engaged in the business of settling in and the most progress is made when the bambini are asleep which is historically when we compose blog posts that are hopefully irreverent yet heartfelt and that capture the madness and magic of years in which two preschoolers are padding about our hearts. Once we are further along, we plan to take you on a tour of White House a la Jackie. We save that for another day.

Tonight we bring you an overdue report on Our Hero's fifth birthday bash at Kiddywumpus where as you may recall, he and 10 of his nearest and dearest got to throw paint on the wall at the "Action Jackson" party. Fans, what an operation! Ms. Amy and Ms. Shelia (who was working her first day ever!) were amazing. We loitered about in the toy store that constitutes the store's entrance (Ms. Amy is shrewd owner-operator) and as parent arrived with Joe's guests, they were whisked to the "gift trolley" and asked to leave their contact information on a clipboard and before we knew it, the kids were lined up ready to head back to the art studio. Ms. Amy had already quizzed us on who Joe's besties were, who was especially energetic, the mix of girls and boys, and so on. She wrote each child's name on a piece of paper and then hung them on the wall in an order that made sense so each one knew just where to go. The main event was bookended by small, table-centered art projects to allow late comers time to arrive and all paint throwers time to wind down.

Birdie was there and Fans, let's just just say that on that day, she was ROCKSTAR Birdie. She was in the mix, but it was Joe's party for sure. Clara was the only one who got to stand close to the wall as Ms. Amy rightly knew she was too little to throw paint very far. So she painted, and couldn't have been more darling.

And now, as they say, a picture's worth a thousand words. (Are eight of them are worth 8,000?)