Princess and Pirate Party.

Tuesday afternoon I had my left knee MRI, and boy was that loads of fun. Twenty-five minutes of absolute stillness. Great for someone with jerking lower limbs.  At least my orthopedic surgeon will hopefully see what's wrong, and make it better.

After the MRI we took SS to the library for a Princess and Pirate party.  Unbeknown to SS, we bought her a pirate costume. Not because of the party, she could have worn her dollar store pirate paraphernalia for that. Next month we are taking SS, and hopefully JJ, to a pirate themed dinner show. She will have the opportunity to have her picture taken with "real" pirates, and we did not want her to be under dressed for such an important occasion. There were two pirate costumes to choose from, a regular black, white and red, and a brown captain pirate costume. I reached for the former, and P for the latter. P liked the captain pirate look better, plus it's a captain, a higher rank. I didn't know that pirates, or five year old kids cared about rank. In a rare show of magnanimity, I did not even bother to plead my case.

SS was more than happy with her Baba's choice, and could not believe that she had scored a cool costume. Initially we only saw boy pirates and girl princesses. Much to our relief several girl pirates showed up. SS struck a quick friendship with a five year old boy who complimented her costume as soon as we entered the library. He too was dressed as a pirate, and initially I thought they had the same costume. His was brown also, similar, but different. When the boy noticed SS's long hair he exclaimed "that little boy has really long hair." Before I could explain, his grandmother stated "your hair used to be that long too, I miss it."  I did tell them that SS is a girl, technically, suspected Y chromosome notwithstanding. 

Upon entering the party, the children were greeted by Snow White, and I had to coerce SS to stand near the fair princess. Snow White read the kids a cool story, The Paper Bag Princess. So cool a story that I'm going to get SS the book. The princess disses the dude, and they don't get married, nor live happily ever after. The kids then played Poison Apple, kind of creepy, but I'm no child expert. After that, Snow White and Pirate Dude distributed juice and gummy snacks to the kids. Always good to have children ingest sugar at 4:30 p.m.

After the children were sufficiently sugared up, it was time to look for hidden treasures. Again, no pirate expert here, but I did not know treasures are hidden in inflatable plastic pools, under what looked like hay. Each child could retrieve three candies, then proceeded to decorate their own goodie bag. SS came up with Whoppers, and as soon as I saw them, I had a flashback to Saturday. Since I was not in the mood to practice the Heimlich maneuver on my child again, we discreetly hid the candy. Yeah, we are evil that way.

When it was time to leave, P reminded SS of her manners, and told her to "Go to Sleeping Beauty and say thanks." HA! That is something that would usually come out of my mouth. I'm the D*sney princesses ignoramus at home. SS quickly corrected her Baba, and I had a good laugh.  Not one to be deterred after a blunder, P spent the ride to the restaurant further annoying SS. He asked her if she enjoyed meting Mulan. Later asked if she really said goodbye to Belle, then Ariel, then Cinderella. He might not know what they look like, but he surely knows their names.  I get dissed by my daughter and sulk, P just keeps rolling.  

With the amount of homework that SS has, coupled with her writing difficulty, it is tricky doing things on school days. But it was so worth taking the time to go, and even better, P being there made SS's day.

Mami was so right when she said "al que no quiere caldo le dan dos tazas," (the one that does not like broth gets two cups). How dare I complain about nineteen pages of homework, knowing darn well that it would increase? SS came home with 27 pages yesterday. She has to write the alphabet, both capital and small letters.  Funny thing is that they missed two letters from the Spanish alphabet. There was no note attached, thus we do not know when it is due, or if it was meant for practice at home. We are operating under the assumption that it is due next Wednesday. SS managed to finish five pages yesterday. The big question is if SS will be getting a homework packet today, because yesterday's gift did not come in the homework folder. SIGH. We finally figured out why the kindergarten school day is only three hours long.  The children need the rest of the day to complete homework. 

SS had to return her sword to the van, because in this wishy washy world, not even toy swords are allowed in the library.

They can take away her toy weapon, but they can't take away her natural lethal weapons, her tiny fists.

Sad puppy eyes, upon realizing that Baba left to get us something to drink. SS was afraid he would not make it back in time.

SS was so excited about taking a picture with Snow White that she did not even bother opening her eyes.

Decorating her goodie bag, so other pirates won't pilfer and plunder her stash.

Now this guy is worth looking at the camera Mama and Baba. The guy really looks like the J0hnny Depp character, and even had very feminine mannerisms. 

Even the most menacing of pirates have to eventually pay the piper. After filling her tummy at an Italian restaurant, it was back to homework.