In celebration of my little firecracker’s second birthday (I CANNOT believe it has been two years), we gathered some friends together in our very favorite of all parks, good old Tompkins Square (although I must say that it's nearly tied with Washington Square as far as favorite parks go). I laid out a couple of blankets, threw down a dozen balls for the kids to play with, arranged the straws in their mason jars and the paper plates in their pretty wire holders, stacked the party hats, iced the cupcakes, strung the decorations, and set out the food (a giant tub of bagels and cream cheese, apples, oranges, bananas, and seltzer). And then the toddlers arrived. And with them came mayhem. In my head, I had envisioned a laid back picnic with everyone lounging on the grass playing music and snacking. In reality. the decorations flew everywhere, the bagels were stepped on, the balls landed on the cupcakes (and the ice, and our faces), and pieces of half eaten banana ended up in my purse. There were a couple of costume changes involved, we never actually got around to lighting the birthday candles, there were multiple toddler escape attempts through the fence- it was madness. And of course I accidentally scheduled the party on the exact same day that the park hosts the Howl Festival, so performance art and music and characters of all sorts surrounded us. We were right in front of the bandshell where “Men in Skirts” drag performers rolled out the hits, and over on the street giant canvases were stretched for artists to paint throughout the day. A man dressed as a bug (?) robot (?) randomly joined the party. Then a couple of hoola hoops showed up and made the rounds. Good times, I tell you- good times.
Biet's party was loud, messy, totally not what I had expected (I’m still learning the ropes of this whole toddler thing), and...
utterly perfect. I couldn’t have planned a more fitting day for my wild little pearl of a girl. She was born in the East Village, after all. :)Baby girl, I can't
wait to make this year as fantastically adventuresome and lively as that day in the park. xx(and thank you LaTonya & Leigh & Karolina & Christine for making it out!)
... and these invitations that I designed a couple of weeks ago ended up being kind of perfect too..
