Hello, Common Sense

We've officially hit the point in the Toddler Games where I don't know how old Mila is when people ask. She's 1 1/2, sure, but the actual number of months? Mathity math math is required and I don't math unless I'm getting paid to math.

This is the best part of the Toddler Games, methinks. The part where the math is hard but the toddler vocabulary is mostly simple and fun. Toddlers at this point in the game are so much fun.

Because they have a teeeeeeeny bit of common sense. 

Dinner is still a battle of the wills. Mila isn't real interested in sitting down to eat, so she's "ALL DONE!" before everyone else has a chance to pull up to the table. That's not to say that she's not hungry, she just done sitting down to eat. And if you try to convince her that she has to wait while the rest of us eat? Forget it. She's not doing it. She forces the issue by throwing the food she doesn't want all over the place. You can go ahead and yell at her at the top of your lungs, but she won't stop.

She's fearless.

But she knows exactly when to stop. There's a very fine line between getting scolded and having your mom completely lose it. She stops right before that line. She toes it, but she doesn't cross it. 

Mila has also figured out that her little habit of losing her temper can only go so far. When she's mad, she throws things. It may be food, it may be a toy, we all just hope that it's not the kitchen table because I wouldn't doubt that she could do it if she tried. We're working with her to get her to realize that it's really stupid to throw things and part of that is telling her to clean up the mess she made.

She's starting to do it.

Like, she threw some orange slices yesterday and when I said "Clean that up," SHE DID. She picked up each slice and then put it in the trash.

It was magical.

So while I'd prefer she not throw things in the first place, I'll take it. Progress. It's the beginning of my most favorite part of the Toddler Phase.

Harry was the Source of Much Drama

Now that we're on the other side of things, I think it's safe to admit that I didn't love the idea of a Harry Potter themed birthday party.

CALM DOWN, POTTERHEADS. You might as well let me finish before you do that loud gasp thing.

I didn't love the idea of a Harry Potter party for a bunch of reasons. The main one was that I had zero ideas of what to do for it because I haven't read the books. Or watched the movies. Or anything.

OK, Potterheads, now you may gasp at me. Done yet? How about now? Does it help to know that Alexis has already read me the riot act over this terrible sin that I have committed? 

Moving on ... So, it stands to reason that I had to spend a lot of time listening to other people talk about Harry Potter so that I could figure out what to cook and how to decorate. Alexis was, of course, my primary source of inspiration but GEEEESH is it hard to listen to your own kid be passionate about something you don't care about. I mean, I managed, but I had to ask her to repeat herself a whole bunch. And then I still forgot to pay attention.

It wouldn't have been quite so difficult if Alexis hadn't originally said she wanted an emoji party. That was the first idea she had and she stuck with it for weeks before falling in love with a little wizard-type guy. I had so many amazing ideas for emojis. The cake? The cake would have been amazing. AMAZING!

Alas, it was not meant to be.

And that leads us to the biggest reason I didn't love Harry. THE DRAMA ZOMG. The second Alexis decided she wanted all things Harry, she realized that very few people at school are in-the-know. She could only think of three people, in fact. She got completely stuck on the idea that she should only invite people who were Harry Potter fans, but you can't just invite three people and sooooooooooooo muuuuuuuuuuuuuch draaaaaaaama.

It went on for weeks.

I kept saying that it was okay to invite people who don't like Harry. Alexis insisted that she couldn't. I told her to invite more people. She refused. We went back and forth with Alexis basically having a mental breakdown because she wanted to invite more people, but in her very black and white world, only people who like Harry Potter were eligible. 

That. That right there is the problem with having a kid who is very much so a slave to "rules," even when those rules are only in her head.

Just don't mention Harry Potter around me any time soon. I need some Harry-free time so that I can recover from all of the drama.

The Harry Potter Party Decorations

There is a magical thing that happens as your kids get older -- you can turn them into active participants in their own birthday party preparations. That's how it came to be that I had very little to do with the conversion of our dining room into The Great Hall.

I wasn't kidding. We Great Halled it up like nobody's business.

So, let's start with the candles, shall we? I found quite a few tutorials for how to recreate the floating candles around the internet, and they all had one thing in common -- WHY YOU LIKE TO DO SO MUCH WORK, INTERNET? I mean, there's a tutorial involving paper towel rolls, hot glue, and paint and noooooooooope. No, thank you. I much prefer projects where I can walk away.

So I did.

Here's Alexis showing how she did most of the work.

That's right, all of those candles were nothing more than little LED tealights and a piece of card stock. Alexis rolled and taped 48 of those buggers then I hung them from the ceiling with clear thread.

Here's how they looked at night.

Not bad for a cheap little project, eh? If you're looking to make your own floating candles, I suggest these LED tealights or go to Michael's (but use a fancy coupon because they're a lot more expensive there).

Oh, and the walls? I suppose maaaaaaybe the fact that I turned the walls into stone is worth noting? I bought a very giant roll of fake stone wall stuff on Amazon. It's four feet tall so I had to do two rows all around the dining room.

If you need some, I have plenty. That's what happens when I decide to skip measuring the room and just round up.

ANYWAY.

I didn't take pictures of the other decorations, but it probably doesn't matter since all of the internet has stuck a Moaning Myrtle in the toilet. Here's the printable I used. I also used this printable in my quest to create a Platform 9 3/4. The key to that trickery was this little fun thing from Amazon. I hung it in a doorway, did a little taping and cutting, and ended up with a lovely little "fake wall."

That Mila loved IMMENSELY.

She happily Kool-Aid Manned her way through that thing over and over and over. You'd think there would be video of her doing it since she was so very proud of herself, but apparently a room full of phones isn't enough when it comes to capturing these things.

No matter.

It's still hanging up.

I will (eventually) get video.

And that's it! That's all I did! Aren't you proud of me for reigning in my birthday theme insanity?