six

Ella turned six last week. There'd been a lot of ongoing discussions about her party (a whole year's worth) but on Thursday we sat down together and had a bit of a planning session about what we'd do. How I love these discussions - a girl after my own heart - a fairy corner, a royal court, a night sky (I found a note she had written on the topic: "moor stuf - wot ubat wee can mac a nyt skuy").

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I suggested some crafty and maybe a few dress-ups, and she came up with the genius suggestion that the kids could make masks and then get dressed up for a Samba parade "like at Womad". Brilliant. And then we thought we'd have a wishing tree - where Ella could attach leaves for each of her party friends and they could attach leaves for her. We did a lot of thoroughly enjoyable preparation - painted party bags, drew a tree, cut and painted leaves, picked glitter and lanterns.

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All of this pretty much worked out - this short sentence underlying a fair amount of activity and chaos and joy and excitement. I thought they might have lost interest, but the kids insisted on a Samba Parade up the street with flags, drums and tinsel. They wanted to go further, but the grown-ups were flagging. Of course I didn't get one photo - too busy banging the drum and tying elastic on masks.

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What a joy to be six.