Outdoor Birthdays Resurgent

I have really tried to restrain myself from various “nature is healing” jokes about the return to normalcy, but I did go to an actual, in-person kid’s fifth birthday party at a nearby park yesterday, and boy oh boy is nature healing. I haven’t seen so many children (ten? twelve? I lost count) in one place for the same reason in considerably more than a year. One of the last events to be cancelled before the lockdown in 2020 was another of Kina’s friends’ birthday parties, and every birthday celebration since then has been either Zoom or nonexistent. So yesterday, as I stood in the corner of the park pavilion, holding Kina’s half-eaten slice of pizza as she argued with various tall children about her age, I recognized the moment for what it was—a return to the kind of social event I have dreaded for my entire life, another one of which Kina will nonetheless demand of me just nine months from now.

It’s all coming back to me now, and the kids are growing again. All for the best, even if it’s awkward.

Another Parade of rainbows, in slightly more subtle hues. “Make the letters small,” said Kina. So noted.

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