A Lovely Tea Party

This afternoon I received an invitiation I could not refuse to a lovely tea party given in my honor by my wonderful hostess Sirah. She invited me into her home (her bedroom) where she was all dressed up in a beautiful blue fairy dress. She set the table with her fine china tea set and set me on one side and her on the other.

She amazed me with her memory reminding me that she got this tea set when she was in california at Grandma's birthday at the restuarant where her aunt and uncle gave her this for her birthday. And we think they don't remember - that was nearly a year ago right after she turned three.

Anyway back to our tea party. She washed all the dishes and filled the tea pot, she provided the tea in the proper order with cream and sugar. She told me when it was cool and provided lovely conversation throughout the tea time. Her manners were excellent, perhaps even better than my own. She spoke with a lovely gentile accent that I have no idea where she got in from and her wisdom seemed far beyond her years.

It was a lovely way to pass nearly an hour and a moment that nothing else could compare with. I am glad I set aside everything else to spend time doing that with her at her request. It is a moment I know I will remember forever. As the teatime ended (so we could pick up dad from work) she carefully "washed" all her dishes and returned our other guests (lamb and share bear) to their place on her bed and asked me to carry her to the car.

In full dress up fairy costume I carried her to the car - with such a mixture of emotion of how little and old she is at the same time. Today when I pushed her on the high swing and watched her work on pumping herself and listened to her count and point to her numbers or pretend she too was learning to read I realized just how much she has grown this year.

She has always been verbal beyond her years so sometimes that does not phase me the same way as seeing her doing new things and acting so mature. Something about the time we shared today in our tea party reminded me to cherish these hours and stop whatever I am doing to have a cup of tea with this fine hostess.

Tonight Serona has Rhia out on a date. They are going bowling and out for a special desert. Really what they are doing matters much less than the special time that they have set apart for each other to enjoy each other. I am going to take this moment to bring a big stack of storybooks into my bed and snuggle up with Sirah and Ciaran and enjoy some special snuggle story times.

Kiss and hug your babies and your big kids too!