Peaches turns six tomorrow. Yesterday was her party. She picked the theme—fashion fairy tale. She wanted a dress-up party. Dress by H&M. Juice and marker stains yet to come.

A few Halloweens ago in Prospect Park I saw a yellow labbish type dog in a pink tutu. I took a picture. I thought it one of the most heartwarming images I’d ever seen. One of those sweet confectionaries that makes you smile even when you’re in the middle of a pity party. I am halfway motivated to troll through my archives, locate it and post it here. But small people are slamming doors and stomping and screaming downstairs. And it is Mother’s Day, a day of rest, right? A day to luxuriate, eat bacon and blog.

Ah yes. Here she is. At least I hope it’s a she.

I felt compelled to copy the canine ballerina look in miniature for Nyla. She was a sport, wearing the tutu for quite a while till Spike came home and restored her dignity. He’d been at another party down the street and hadn’t been in on the plan, see.

There’s Nyla below greeting arriving guests. She was very polite. Didn’t try to eat anyone, didn’t even growl or bark, except at the vacuum cleaner before the party. God I love that dog.

We gave feather boas as party favors and then started the strip-tease activity set to Christina Aguilera music, from her recent oeuvre. So titillating! The parents who chose to stay especially appreciated it. How thoughtful, they murmured, about the pole we’d rented from the local fire department.

I don’t have pictures of the pole because I am joking. Ha! But the boas. That was real as you can see. Woohoo! as Xtina would say.

Between nibbles of puff-pastry-wrapped mini sausages and juice-box sips—this was no Primal party—the girls did actually create dazzling paper crowns. Very fashion. I only spent $85 on sparkly supplies. A bargain! You don’t even know if I’m joking! Neither do I!

Peaches was adamant that we have pinkie cupcakes. It was far easier than the Hello Kitty cake, the flower cake, and the butterfly cake from yesteryears. Phew.

Peaches is not quite a woman. She is still a girl. But the pose captured below shimmers with the essence of jaded teen. I am so done for. No really I adore the kid. I do. We just spend far too much time together. Can’t wait for summer! HA!

Then there was the whole thing where Peaches insisted we have white-chocolate-dipped candy apples. With sprinkles. She’d read about them in this book. She tore out the recipe poster and gave it to me. For a long time I could not wrap my head around these apples. I’d never heard of white chocolate-dipped apples, and envisioned a lot of weird-tasting, wasted apples. I suggested apple slices half-dipped in white chocolate artfully arranged on a pretty platter. Peaches said no. I suggested strawberries dipped in chocolate. Elegant! Peaches said no. The whole point, she explained, was to have a whole apple on a stick.

Swamp chicken counseled that Peaches is our princess and should have the treat she wants for her party. I felt conflicted about that. On one hand I don’t want to raise a deprived child. On the other, I don’t want an entitled brat. Minimizing my resentment and/or guilt is also relevant. Parenting decisions are so hard sometimes. But I usually defer to Swamp Chicken sooner or later. He’s the steady sturdy one.

The scary thing was that Peaches began uttering a phrase, with attitude, that rattled my soul: “It’s my party,” she’d say. Like a warning, an ominous prediction for the year 2021. She used it during the Great Apple Debate and again in Kitchen Kapers when we were shopping for sprinkles. She spied the large, regular-sized cupcake wrappers and decided we should have them, when I suggested we get the gold mini wrappers, for the mini cupcakes I planned to bake.

She said, “But Mom. It’s MY party,” very insolent, and I shivered. But not before explaining that since I am the one doing all the work, and since we only have mini-cupcake pans that cost me a a fortune at Williams-Sonoma before I knew any better, we will ALWAYS and FOREVERMORE make mini cupcakes, until it has become spectacularly apparent that I have gotten my money’s worth, until we’re stacked to the ceilings in miniature, sugary fluff, and when she is all grown up she can make all the regular sized cupcakes she wants. Gosh darn it.

Perhaps this is partly why I spent the week leading up to the party weeping and yelling at the children between fits of shirking my motherly duties—cooking, supervising, not cursing a blue streak… If you’re wondering at my loss of emotional calm, I’ll tell you this: I tried dieting recently. You know, eating less. Exercising more. Bikini season prep*. The emotional tailspin it threw me into was about as attractive as our compost heap. I have so much to say on the subject, but it veers so violently from the topic at hand that I’ll save it for another post. (*Of course it could have been triggered by the six homemade fudge squares I couldn’t resist, hot from the oven. Or it could be hormones, age, external stimuli, pollen. I might never know.)

Finally the day was upon me and it worked out, the apple thing, with far more ease than I’d thought. I felt silly for fretting. Really silly. It was Swamp Chicken’s suggestion to bag them and give them as favors instead of serving them as party fare, which eased most of my angst. The man is brilliant. Someone should give him money. A lot of frigging money.

In the end everyone seemed to appreciate the unusual apples and I thanked Peaches for planning such a creative, imaginative party. I love you so much, sweet girl. You’re so fashion.

Happy Mother’s Day. Thanks for playing along. May all your dreams come true.

xxx