Jefferson City, Part II: Yvette's Birthday

We arrived in Jefferson City the day before Yvy's birthday. Being on the road makes it a little tricky to party a kid up and make her feel special.

This is Emma. She and Yvy share their birthday. Emma's mom had the idea to take a picture of them together every year on their birthday. This is Year No. Three of the tradition. It's fun to see the pictures, and watch these girls grow. This year, we had to do it the day before, since we were leaving town.

But I had planned for it, to be sure there was some kind of hurrah. And I think it went well. I must give credit to the awesomeness that is Natalie, over at 100% Cottam, for this idea. She is a veritable clearinghouse of awesomeness and ideas, to be sure.

Eliza hard at work, planting magic lollipop seeds, with Katie in the background, dispensing more seeds to eager gardeners Isaac and Ian.

It works like this: you get some kind of round candy (more is better). The evening before the special day - while it's still light...we waited a little too long, so were doing it by porch light - round up the little chiddlers and tell them you're going to plant lollipops. Give them each a handful of the candy, and show them how to plant lollipop seeds:


Plant one, eat one; plant one, eat two...repeat. We planted ours by simply dropping them on the lawn. I chose those little round SweetTart candies, because they were yummy and brightly colored.


Yvette was tired - it was late! - and rather grumpy, so she belligerently stood on the porch, eating all her seeds and planting none of them. We tried to get her excited about it, but she just didn't see the value of dropping any candy in the grass. And that's OK.

The next morning (Yvy's birthday), really early, Hyrum and Charles helped me "grow" the lollipops; in this case, an entire 2 lb. bag of Dum Dum suckers. We pushed the sticks just far enough into the lawn so that they stood up like little Willie Wonka mushrooms. We also picked up all the gooey, sticky-from-the-dew SweetTarts from the night before, so as to not give the magic away. That's why it's nice to get something brightly colored: easy to spot!


Eliza's very first waking though-out-loud was, "Mommy, do you think the suckers have bloomed?" So, of course, we had to wake all the youngsters up (except Lucy and Isaac..nothing shy of an earthquake was getting them up!) and run outside to check. The pure delight on their faces was priceless.
In their little jammies, bare foot and bedhead, they scurried around, picking sucker after sucker. Yvette kept saying, "The suckers are growing on my birthday!"

We held a few back in reserve so that when Isaac woke up, he could harvest a few on his own.

And Gabba and Eliza shared some of their largess with Lucy when she joined the Land of the Living.
But you can't beat the smell of Dum Dums, early in the morning, especially when they're lightly dusted in birthday magic.

And, I am sad to say, I did let them eat their little hearts out way before a nutritious breakfast was even ready. It didn't take long to decimate the entire crop of birthday lollipops.

Yvette - the newly-minted Birthday Girl - displays her Dum Dum tongue