A review request. Little girl has a birthday party.
A Birthday
It was her third birthday, and that was super important. At least as far as she was concerned. It meant she got to have a party just for her, and her aunt would make her favorite foods and Mami would buy her an ice cream cake. She got to have lots of presents and she was super excited about that part. She tried to be patient but the presents were the first thing she asked about when she woke up, and her father had laughed and told her 'later' before letting her pick out her very own birthday girl outfit.
Though she'd wanted her black jeans Papi said it was going to be way too hot, so she selected her red shorts and the batman t-shirt that had been passed down from her cousin Vince when he got too big for it. She'd left her feet bare, and run off to find her Mami to get her hair brushed. She sat on Mami and Papi's big bed, swinging her legs and singing her birthday song as her mother combed her hair carefully. Mami was the best at combing hair. She never tugged too hard or hurt her when there were knots. Mami said Papi didn't know how to brush hair cause he didn't have any, and that had made her giggle.
"What do you want for your birthday breakfast?" Mami asked as she set the comb aside.
She was thoughtful, sprawling on her belly on the bed. She swung her feet but Mami grabbed them, tickling her until she squealed and rolled over, curling up into a ball.
"Mami no!" she giggled and squeaked until her mother relented. Breathlessly, the little girl pushed herself off the bed.
"Want pancakes fow bweakfast!" she announced, and then ran out of the room.
Papi was already in the kitchen with his coffee and he got her a cup of juice while Mami mixed up the pancake batter.
"It's going to be a hot day," he said. "Do you want Papi to set up the pool for your party?"
"Yeah!" she cheered as she climbed into her chair at the table. She was a big girl and didn't have to sit in her high chair anymore.
Mami made her pancake heart-shaped and put extra chocolate chips in it which made her very excited when it was set down on the table before her. She was halfway through with breakfast when the doorbell rang and her mother stood up.
"Your sister and her need to be early to everything," she commented to her husband who only laughed and shrugged. She went out of the kitchen and through the living room to the front door. The birthday girl paused in her eating to listen to the voices filtering in from the other room. She could hear her uncle laughing when Mami commented that they were always ridiculously early. Her cousin Vincent was the first one to wander into the kitchen. He was carrying bags of presents and she eyed them with interest. But Papi took them away from Vince and brought them into another room, a secret hiding place so she wouldn't start peeking before it was time to open them.
When her breakfast was nothing more than a few smears of chocolate on the plate she jumped down from her seat, announcing that she was all done. She went into the other room to find Vince to play with. He was her cousin and he was three years older than her, but he still played with her whenever their families got together (which was lots). He got to go to school and he had lots of other friends already. Sometimes she got jealous of that. But then she remembered she'd rather be at the garage with Mami and Papi than at some stupid school place.
Vince was with Aunt Mia and Mami pulling things out of a box. There were streamers and packages of balloons, and ribbons. Her favorite colors red and blue were in everything.
"V!" she hollered, tackling him from behind, her arms banding around his neck. She pulled him over onto the floor with her and he groaned and rolled around playfully.
"Augh, a monster got me!" he cried. She giggled and roared at him, tickling him with tiny fingers. He laughed and rolled away, scampering past their amused mothers and running through the kitchen. She raced after him, crawling underneath Uncle Brian's legs where he stood at the back door. Papi was outside hauling the inflatable pool from the shed. Music was playing from the old CD player set up off the porch. She and Vince ran circles around Papi and Uncle Brian as they set up the pool and she sang a little song about going swimming.
Soon, Aunt Mia came outside to put balloons and streamers around and set up the table. Uncle Roman soon arrived with his new girlfriend, and she wasn't so interested in her, just the big box she carried, all wrapped in red with racecars on it. But Mami took that away and hid it too and she may have pouted just a little until Vince tugged at her arm and told her to get on her swim suit.
She dug her favorite one out of her bottom dresser drawer and shed her clothes hastily. She wiggled into the swim suit, snapping the straps over her shoulders. She looked in the mirror to make sure it was on the right way. Sometimes she still put it on backwards. This one was her favorite even though Mami called it her 'girly swimsuit'. It was red with dark blue polka dots and a little frill of skirt at the sides. But it was still her favorite colors, and Aunt Mia had bought it for her special.
By the time she came back downstairs Uncle Hector was there with his daughter Ana. She was only one and a half and she was always dressed in pink, but it was nice to have someone other than Vince to play with. She danced around Uncle Hector and he laughed and said she was getting so big, which made her grin. Papi had the grill started up and Uncle Brian had finished filling the pool. Vince was already in it, splashing water at his father who scolded him in return.
Cheering she raced across the yard to dive in, hitting them both with a big splash.
She was playing so happily she hardly noticed more people arriving. Lots of Mami and Papi's friends. Lots of pretty, noisy fast cars lining the street and crowding up the driveway. She abandoned the pool, scampering across the crowded lawn and giggling whenever someone commented about the birthday girl or how big she had gotten. She left wet footprints down the driveway, trailing her little hand along the sides of the cars lined there, stared at her reflection in the gleaming metal rims.
"Vroom, vroom," she mimicked, circling around past high performance exhaust systems and shock absorbers. Eyeing spoilers and flame decals along the sides, admiring a grill polished to a shine. She was on her tippy toes, nose pressed against a window, trying to see inside when Papi found her in front of the house.
"What are you doing?" he laughed. "You're missing your party."
She looked up at him, huge dark eyes and innocent face. "Papi? I get caw fow birf-day?"
"Maybe some hot wheels," he said, scooping her up to hold her easily in one of his strong arms. "As for something to drive, give us another ten years before you start asking for that, Sweetheart."
"Why?" she asked, pouting as she let him carry her back towards the yard.
He laughed again, shaking his head. "Because you're a shrimp. You wouldn't be able to reach the pedals."
"Oh," she lamented, because he was right.
"Come on now, no pouting on your birthday," he said, pressing a noisy kiss against her cheek that made her giggle and squirm in his arms.
There was neither time nor reason to pout at all. Family and friends had made a loud gathering, laughing around the table as they passed around food. The ice cream cake was shaped like a car and all in red. And it had a candle shaped like the number 3 on top. She blew it out, scrunching her eyes tightly shut as she made her wish.
After cake there were piles and piles of presents. Lots of hotwheels, some new clothes (less exciting), the newest Disney movie, and a race car game she could play with her tablet. Mami and Papi got her a tricycle, all red with silver streamers on the handles. She knew she could make it go fast down the sidewalk and wanted to play with it right away, pushing it across the lawn to the driveway, bare feet braced on the pedals. She leaned forward, "Vroom, vroom!" and took off.
And for this birthday, having a car was, briefly, forgotten.