The best weekend in March
Be aware, it's going to be a very long read, but I don't care! I want to have it all written down for her to read later. If you stick through to the end, you get a prize!
It was our daughter's birthday and although it first looked as if we could not execute all of our plans that day because of a rising cough in the house, all things worked out fine. Our daughter's birthday always starts the evening before, when we start blowing up balloons as we know she loves them. Thankfully for us, this year we bought better quality balloons and the task was suddenly 100% easier. Note to self: don't be a cheapskate buying balloons. Check.
This year we could not hang up these balloons, unfortunately, as we have these white walls and no drilled holes we could use. We decided not to risk upsetting the landlord for the last few months we plan to stay here and just leave them lower to the ground instead. We put all her gifts on the dining table and dumped a big pile of balloons on top of them so she didn't see them right away. There was one tiny package, a gift box with 3 new headbands and some hair elastics that we didn't leave on the table but planned to give her in bed, after singing for her the next morning. We thought we'd have a bit of fun and act as if this was her only gift. To see her response. We knew she'd be happy either way.
The night was not that great
I wish I could say we all slept like babies and woke up happy smiling and excited for the day. I can't though. After a few nights of taking over-the-counter sleeping pills (they have these heavy stuff ones here in Spain!) which I haven't taken since my back accident in 2016, I decided to not take them that night. I woke up with a less hurting throat on Friday morning so I figured this was the time to stop doing that to sleep through the cough triggers. I wish I didn't! I was up until 5 at least because of the youth hanging next to our window, jumping up and down the metal stairs connected to our building. I tried sleeping at a construction site (this is how it sounds when they do). Several times I thought I was going to scream something very rude to them, I even practiced it in Spanish but decided not to do that. In my head, this was the moment I decided that if the situation would allow it, we'd move next month, lol. I was already moving on thanks to this one horrible night.
The next morning I ask my boyfriend did you hear any of it? Nope, for once he slept like a baby instead of me. Djeez. He made me coffee, the sweetheart, I was crying my eyeballs out because of the noise and frustration which I really had enough of after this period of living here. This night was the worst of them all, I wondered why they had to do this with my girl's birthday and all of our plans. I hoped that I could pull through (I don't do well when being held from sleep and being pulled out of it every 10 minutes if I finally seem to fall asleep). Thankfully, the coffee helped and our weekend started very positively as we started to sing for our daughter.
In Spanish: Cumpleaños Feliz!!
Fun fact, we don't know the full song, in our defense, our daughter still doesn't sing the Dutch version correctly either so we figured we'd deserve a bit of slack here. She woke up happy (duh!) and we gave her the box with the headbands and then acted as if it was all we had for her. She was so happy, unbelievable how thankful this kid can be. It tears me up when we realize that she'd be perfectly fine if that was all.
We asked her if she wanted to sleep a bit longer (stupid idiot's parents woke up at 8 to sing while she was still snoozing at 9!) of course she didn't want to sleep. She walked into the living room and saw the table full of balloons, all excited and it didn't take long for her to see the gifts underneath them. She was very happy with them and we both forgot there was another little bag with a dress and matching vest there, until 1,5 hours later she discovered it herself, lol. As expected, the kid is happy, me a bit less as the dress is a bit big still, but she'll grow in it so it's fine.
As per tradition: Cake for breakfast!
With our daughter being a picky eater in terms of bread and toppings, we once decided you know what it's your birthday, you can have cake. And we never stopped doing that so this time was no exception, of course. I planned on baking one myself, I already decided what I was going to back and which filling and topping I'd do, but when I was still not 100% by Thursday, I didn't want to risk me being too off the weather to make it and then having to rush to the store on Friday to get a cake.
I already had a backup plan, a Frozen cake from the local supermarket, it looked great, and we knew she'd be happy therefore it was a solid backup option. We got lucky as the cake turned out to be so good! A chocolate filling which was a great combo with the cake layers. Loved it, glad I went for that option, saved me lots of work and time, but most importantly, I didn't have to stress getting it done on time for her.
A few hours to work
We knew my boyfriend needed to have his weekly management meeting so we didn't plan on going anywhere until in the afternoon. This would give me a bit of time to do a few things as well while she enjoyed playing with her new toys. Thankfully, she was very happy and didn't complain a bit. She kept saying how happy she was with her gifts and her headbands, lol. So grateful, it was all worth it.
While normally she's very impatient when we go somewhere as she can't understand the time yet, I totally expected her to complain many many times before we'd leave, but none of that happened. She waited patiently and was a doll all morning and beginning the afternoon before we were all ready to get dressed and head out. I tell you, this is a rare occurrence and when it happens, we expect the "spell" to break within a short time because she's just not understanding enough when she has to wait a little longer. It's frustrating to deal with, but it also meant that when this didn't happen, like on her birthday, we were all so relaxed all day, which was so good!
First stop
Earlier that week, we went to a clothing store, and she spotted a cute bag. We said no at the time and discussed it later at home. We decided we'd give it to her on her birthday. She didn't even realize that we were going to that store for that bag, she assumed we'd stop at the supermarket. The joy was big when we said well, since it's your birthday, let's buy you the bag after all.
Happy kid, happy parents.. haha. I forgot to take a picture of this bag, but I can assure you that she's using it every time we go out!
Surprises incoming
We planned on going to the cinema if all went well, and I would not have any extreme cough sessions anymore. After that sleepless night of a max of 3 hours of sleep, I had a very sore throat again thanks to getting triggered to cough constantly again after so many hours of turning and twisting. So in the morning, I was doubting we'd end up in the cinema where I'd be annoying to other visitors. We didn't mention any of the things we were going to do until we were there. Great tactic, no expectations, just fun surprises. We learned that worked very well for her (and us).
Time to check out the arcade inside the mall which we spotted the week before. We thought it was quite small and a good opportunity to kill time before the cinema started (or if the cinema was not going to happen, spend some more time there). We didn't see the inside so we walked around and found out there's a bowling part as well as an indoor playground part. We had no clue how things worked and when I asked the guy behind the counter, we were still not sure if he understood my question correctly. We gave it some thought and decided on a game plan for later.
Energy needed
So that we could deal with the screaming kids. The new game plan is: first, we need food as it was already past lunchtime and we hoped to escape the loud madness for a bit longer. We agreed on Taco Bell (it's all junk food in the mall, so not many options anyway) as it was the only one we all liked. I admit that I bribed my daughter a bit by promising her an ice cream right after, little did she know that we'd buy her that anyway haha.
Time to enter the twilight zone
I deeply regretted not thinking about taking earplugs. How could I not think of that when having such a horrible night and desperately adding cotton balls in my ears to hopefully fall asleep with the sound? How did I not remember these indoor kids' things are a nightmare to be in? No way back though, or was there? My boyfriend saved the day. He said, "What if we go to the cinema instead?". Her interest peaked and when she saw the movie posters she was like "Yeah!". We decided to check what time we could go, I felt confident enough to enter the cinema as I didn't cough at all. While waiting, we said we'd buy tickets and then do a few games in the arcade.
My prayers must have been answered because apparently there was one playing 15 minutes later. We checked if she'd be ok if we skipped the arcade, and to our surprise, she didn't complain one bit. She was happy that we'd buy popcorn and a slush drink. I thought it was as slush puppy as we call them here, it turned out to be something totally different. I expected a sugar rush and terrible mood hours later, never happened. Gosh, this day was too good already.
Momias (Mummies)
Was the movie of our choice. Fun detail, while it was our daughter's first time in the cinema, it was our first time in a Spanish cinema, and with that watching a movie fully in Spanish without subtitles there in case we'd not understand. We were a bit nervous but there was absolutely no need for that. In fact, I think I understood most of the movie perfectly and I even understood the Spanish jokes in the movie. I really enjoyed it to be honest. It was a fun one and I will write a review about it later this week.
Our daughter was all sucked into the movie and eating popcorn like a pro. We bought a big bucket (it was slightly more expensive than the tiny ones) and at some point, my boyfriend realized she ate half of the bucket by herself, lol. It was nice to see her enjoy every part of the day. There was no break in between the movie and I have to say the chairs weren't too great. We both had sore backs and necks by the time the movie ended. Time to get up and walk!
We ended up driving home instead of to the arcade, thanks to the cinema and all the new impressions she had, she was a happy camper and kept saying it was the best birthday ever. I think she meant it, for us, it was definitely her best birthday ever. We weren't stuck in a tiny radius to do something and everything went super smooth all day. On our way home, she was rewarded with a rainbow:
The cuteness continued
Even at home, she was still a doll and very thankful for what we did while in reality, it was not that big of a deal and less than we planned. We did not anticipate not going to the arcade, only the other way around (skipping the cinema in case I'd not be able to sit inside that long), but in the end, it was not a big deal. Next time when we're there, we will let her play some games, but only if I have some earplugs in my bag, haha.
Of course, she was allowed to stay up longer as she is now 7 and we wanted the sweet moment to last a bit longer ourselves too. We told her many times that she was being so sweet all day, it made our day great. We also tried to explain that being sweet all day usually means everyone is much more relaxed and we get more done as well. Being a pain costs more energy, we think she realized this too when we told her that evening.
To end the great day, we finished up her cake as we figured, why not, lol. Usually, when she has chocolate things (unless quality chocolate) she gets in her head and starts to be unreasonable and rude etc, we realized in the evening that even though she had plenty of chocolate things, it didn't happen today. So thank you Mercadona supermarket, your cake has been approved and will probably be bought more often, haha. She knew it was from this supermarket because she told me in the morning that all these cakes have some superhero or something printed on them. She wanted to know which one when I was going to decorate the cake with candles. Funny how she registered that while doing groceries the other times.
That was the end of the best birthday ever (a weekend in March), I hope you enjoyed reading this, I sure enjoyed looking back at this very fun weekend!
