Slice of Life Day 14

I am participating in the twowritingteacher.org Slice of Life Challenge where I write each day for the month of March. This year my three-year old daughter (now 4 year-old) and I are writing collaboratively. Feel free to follow along our month-long writing journey!

Four year olds everywhere look forward to their birthday parties. In fact they count down the days until their next birthday party the second their previous birthday party finishes. Marlowe is no different. She has been excited for her birthday party for as long as I can remember. My husband and I are into very low key birthdays in our home. Who am I kidding, we are into low key everything in our home.  We planned on simply having five of her friends over to play. Realistically, most of her friends are actually our friends’ kids. It is an excuse for us to have people that we enjoy over to our home and we sneakily call it Marlowe’s birthday party!

As the day drew near, I began to question whether we should have 16 people in our house, sharing toys, cutlery, food etc.  However, I knew how disappointed Marlowe would be if we cancelled. My husband suggested we go to Marble Slab and buy everyone ice cream instead. It would help to avoid bringing  germs into our home and we could avoid food being shared. I was hesitant at first but after a nightmare, I was convinced. I had a dream that a parent was yelling at me because Marlowe’s birthday party caused coronavirus to infect their family. It felt too real to ignore.

I called as soon as Marble Slab opened and the nicest woman reassured me that she could reserve some tables for us and said they would happily have us later in the afternoon. I contacted all of the families and everyone was very flexible and supportive of our decision.

At 3:15, we loaded the car with the loot bags, colouring sheets, birthday balloon and 4 candles to stick in her ice cream cone and we were off  to the ice cream shop!

It turned out perfectly. Marlowe was happy, her friends were covered in ice cream and we felt relieved.

When we got home Marlowe was eager to explore her new presents. She was particularly interested in these re-useable sticker story boards. As she added things to her story board we practiced telling stories. When she finished we chose one to write about.

She was laughing very hard as she continued to put things in the sky. I love when kids think they are the most hilarious things on the planet.

Fairies in the forest

People and things in the sky

They got them down

We practice telling lots of stories and she always says “and that’s the problem in the story.” She definitely knows her story elements.

It’s way more fun telling stories at this age because at 4, their writing skills just can’t capture the creative details they share orally.  She did so great putting down the sounds she heard and I just adore hearing her little voice stretch out the sounds as she is writing.