Kalina's Cat Party

When you're a parent, there's nothing better than being able to make all of your child's dreams come true.

And so it was with great joy that I announced to Kalina on Saturday night: "Tomorrow, we're having your cat party! It's your birthday! You'll get balloons, presents, cake, ice cream and hot dogs and Grandpa and Aunt Nancy will come over!"

The girl set her eyes to twinkling, opened her mouth wide and said nothing. The idea that all of her favorite things were going to come together in one day had rendered her speechless. "What a wonderful coincidence!" she must have thought. [Her actual birthday was Monday, but we celebrated on Sunday for obvious reasons.]

Kalina's been excited about her cat party for a good two months. Aunt Nancy and I started the planning early, anticipating a busy month in June and, frankly, too excited ourselves to put it off. We were in the middle of developing an idea for a lavish garden party, possibly complete with dirt cake, when Kalina, who fortunately/unfortunately understands everything nowadays, chimed in with "cat party!"

Aunt Nancy and I had our turn then at being rendered speechless.

"What was that?" I asked, hoping her distractable little toddler mind would have moved on to something else and we could keep planning our garden party.

"Cat party!" Kalina confirmed. "Cat balloons!" "Cat cake!" she added later. And she never forgot it. What's more, she added some additional stipulations. Did she want the cat party to be at a park instead of in our tiny house? "Our house," she insisted. Did she want any of her friends to come? "No. Grandpa. Aunt Nancy. Uncle Tom. Mommy. Daddy. Kalina. Baa (Lamby). Rowr (Mountain Lion)," became her guest list. So basically, a few family members and stuffed animals would sit around our house and look at pictures of cats. What a party!

We ignored these requests and invited a few friends and stuck with the park as our location. There's only so much Mommy can do.

For the next two weeks, Kalina anticipated her cat party daily. "Cat party?" she'd ask as I was putting her down for bedtime and telling her we'd have a nice day tomorrow.

"Um, sorry Honey, your cat party isn't for another month. That's kind of a long time. You'll fly on an airplane to Minnesota and back before then. Sorry," I'd apologize awkwardly as Kalina would struggle to manage her disappointment.

Soon enough, though, it was time to begin shopping for cat party supplies, and the excitement began to mount again.

Since my toddler is just about the only one who has ever insisted on a cat party, cute decorations are notoriously hard to find. I harbored grandiose plans to make my own until the week-of, at which point we all settled for Hello Kitty stuff, which is really quite cute and only cost about $5 more than homemade ones that I would have labored over for several hours.

Kalina is one who knows how to get what she wants, and so it didn't come as a huge surprise when she sprouted a fever a few days before the big event. Was she simply trying to ensure that only family would be at her party, and that it'd be held at home?

Fortunately, she recovered in time.

And then it became apparent that the heat index would be over 100 for our afternoon outdoor party, and we decided to change the location to a local frozen yogurt place.

And then Matt and I decided we didn't want to try to decorate a yogurt shop in a cat party theme (not to mention the fact that they might not appreciate it).

And so as Kalina was napping, we spread out our Hello Kitty tablecloth, inflated our Hello Kitty balloons, set out our Hello Kitty dinnerware and twisted pink and purple streamers together to create a sweet little cat party in our dining room.

It actually looked rather nice, but I couldn't help but wonder if this was really what Kalina was hoping for. After all, maybe she thought a cat party would include all the neighborhood cats showing up at the door to play with her and let her pull their tails. We knew there was that possibility. Would she be disappointed?

The honor of bringing Kalina downstairs after she awoke was all mine. We trooped down, stuffed toy cats in arms, as I told her that her cat party was ready.

"Cat balloons!" was her enthusiastic greeting. "Pink cat balloon!" "Purple cat balloon!" She was thrilled.

We all admired the decorations for a little while before serving pretend milk to her stuffed cats, welcoming Aunt Nancy and her fistful of balloons and Grandpa to the house, and then decorating not one, but two cat cakes (because Mommy wanted leftovers). Soon it was time to tell the girl we'd be going out for ice cream.

We didn't tell Kalina that her friends would be there, but fortunately she was in a great mood (who wouldn't be when presented with a cat party, cake and ice cream?) and had a nice time eating more sugar than she's probably ever had over her accumulated lifespan. She had a piece of both the chocolate and white chocolate cakes, as well as some of Mommy's chocolate frozen yogurt. Yum. And she extinguished the candle shaped like a 2 on her second try.

Afterward, Grandpa and Aunt Nancy came back to the house and we enjoyed her full-fledged cat party just the way Kalina wanted it, including hot dogs and presents. It wasn't nearly as weird celebrating cats as I thought it'd be, and we all had a lovely time.

The next day was Kalina's actual birthday. We didn't want to confuse the girl and avoided saying "happy birthday" the whole day. It was strange and a bit sad for me, but I felt better when she shared a nice bowl of ice cream with Matt before bed.

And that is how Kalina turned 2 in style. Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

[Uncle Tom, by the way, made his appearance the next day, and actually did have a good excuse for missing his niece's cat party.]













Photo 1: Kalina and a mini cat party using her hand-me-down picnic table and a leftover piece of tablecloth. Would you believe Matt set this up for her?
Photo 2: Kalina with all her presents on Sunday morning. We admit that we recycled a few of them from the previous present-opening session at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Minnesota. After all, she enjoyed opening them just as thoroughly the second time.
Photo 3: A present from Grandma! Kalina's first word after opening this gift was "Baaa." She knew who the seat in the cart was for!
Photo 4: Kalina's cat party dream come true.
Photo 5: Cat cake 1 of 2--the white cat (which is what Kalina requested. Mommy requested the chocolately brown cat cake). And what's a cat cake made out of anyway?
Photo 6: The party in the frozen yogurt place. Silly Mommy forgot to get pictures of all the guests (I only have eyes for Kalina, I guess!). If you took any, please send them to me! :)
Photos 7-9: A cute photo sequence of Kalina receiving her gift of a tricycle, from Grandpa and Aunt Nancy. Notice in the first photo Kalina has her wide-mouthed "surprised" face on.