Party Animal

I thought a baby pool, water games and birthday cake were the perfect ingredients for a good 2-year-old birthday party. But apparently, Camille would've liked a DJ, a bunch of teenagers and some Cheetos just as well.

Yesterday we were partyin' fools, with two different birthday parties on our social calendar. The first was for a friend's 7-year-old and was a beach shindig. It was GREAT! Not only did our sweetie hang out contentedly on the sand and play, but when she did want to get in the water, there was a large swath of very shallow water leading out to a sandbar that was just right for a toddler. I think we've found a new favorite section of beach, as long as we can time our trips with low tide. The party was fun, and the hosts were renting a beach condo so we even had a place to bathe our beachy child before putting her in the car seat for the trip home.

That night, we were invited to a birthday party for our friends' 13-year-old twins. We dressed Camille in her hippest clothes, and Lee got this somewhat-fuzzy photo from his phone as we walked out of the house.

I wondered how we might be received by this young bunch, and whether or not it would be "cool" to bring a 2-year-old to this affair, but my fears were unfounded. We'd barely begun walking up the driveway before a red-headed flash came rocketing toward us - it was the birthday girl so excited to see Camille at her party.

There were nearly 100 kids invited to this party, and from the looks of it, most of them came. At first, Camille stuck close by our sides, munching a Cheeto, but she couldn't ignore the thump-thump of the bass for long. The DJ was blasting hip-hop from the garage, and suddenly Camille was jumping and spinning and waving her arms to T-Pain singing "Buy U A Drank." I'm sure he's talking about milk, or perhaps some lemonade, right? As long as Camille thinks so...

She danced and danced and danced some more, smiling so big and getting lots of smiles in return. I kicked myself about 4,587 times for not having a video camera to capture that scene - Camille bringing down the house, while all the 13-year-olds tried to keep up.

Unfortunately for our fly girl, she has an early bedtime so we couldn't party for long. But she had a blast - almost as much fun as I had watching her!