Par-tay!

Tessie was invited to attend a birthday party for one of her day care "classmates" who had recently turned three. It was held at a party facility in South Pasadena that we can wholeheartedly recommend. We rode the Gold Line train down to Mission station and walked a short way to the party.

Amy's Playground has all sorts of toys and fun things for the kids to do. (So does her day care, though. It's not like all the kids do there is just lift weights in the yard and create an underground economy by furtively trading juice boxes.) Tessie spent lots of time in a little play house, cooking pretend meals and serving me pretend coffee, and doing small repairs:

Before long, most of the kids arrived, and the place became pandemonium. It was fun to see Tessie interact with all the friends she tells us about over dinner. The change of venue from the day care also gave them the opportunity to try new things, and there was none of the structure of the day care day. It was two hours of pure self-directed fun.

There was a bouncer, among plenty of other ways to burn off extra energy:

Then, disaster struck. After requesting a chocolate cupcake, Tessie received a pink one. It landed on her plate, and she exploded into tears:

The server was made aware of the error, and a chocolate cupcake was delivered:

Tessie began to realize that the situation might work to her advantage. She now had a chocolate cupcake in hand, and a pink one in reserve:

So, after dispatching the chocolate cupcake, she decided that maybe pink wasn't so bad after all:

Then the trauma was forgotten, and it was time to go back to playing. Here she is sliding down a long chute at the end of a play tunnel:

To prove to us that she had a wonderful time, Tessie followed up her afternoon with a lengthy nap once we got home.