Pop, Fizzle, Bang!

Let me just start off this post by saying that Abe LOVES school.  I knew that he would.  He is an extremely social kid who thrives on routine, both of which school provide for him.  He also has a really good teacher, who has lots of experience in the classroom.  It has been a great year for Abe and of all of our kids, he is the only one that I have no concerns about whether or not traditional school was a good idea.  It clearly suits him well.

So this year, when his birthday rolled around, we knew it was a good year to let him have a "friend" party.   That's what we call them at our house... those years when the kids are allowed to have guests other than our family over to celebrate.  Abe's birthday fell on a Saturday and so we thought it would be a good idea to have the party on his actual birthday.  Except that it was also the Saturday of the big (we didn't realize HOW big) annual softball tournament that the kid's school hosts AND another girl in Abe's class scheduled her party for the same day and time.  At the last minute, we decided we would move it by a few days, which resulted in some of his friends actually being able to attend.  And, I'm pretty sure he had a good time.

He decided he wanted a science theme, which came together pretty nicely with the help of Pinterest, a few websites, and a kindly Science teacher at school who loaned me a few test tubes and such.  I will say that planning a birthday party in Africa can be a bit frustrating because for every 5 cool ideas I read, I can usually find 1 that can be pulled off with the supplies I can find here.  Let's just say that for this theme, baking soda and vinegar were my friends.  

There are lots of things that are different about hosting a party here.  One of them is that RSVPing seems to be unfashionable.  Which may or may not lead to underestimating your numbers.  Not that it really matters in the end, but let’s consider it a lesson learned.   Another is that you shouldn’t naturally assume that the kids are gonna speak proficient English.  At one point, I was trying to speak in French to these two sweet Italian brothers, because my French certainly exceeds my Italian and my English seemed to be confusing them.  I turned to another little boy, who I assumed to be a French speaker since he had an accent, and asked him in English for help with a certain word in French.  The little boy looked at me and said, “How should I know?  I speak Portuguese!”  It gave me a good laugh in the midst of a bit of chaos.

Overall, it was a success and I think Abe felt celebrated.  The kiddos seemed to have a good time, and that was my main goal!

Here is Abe with his family cake, on his actual birthday.

Here's the table, all ready for guests.  

Abe readily agreed to my idea of having the kids each decorate their own cupcakes.  Score one for mom not having to assemble marshmallow fondue decorations in hot Africa!

The kids started out their time together by trying to build the tallest tower out of toothpicks and jelly beans.  Most of them loved either the building or the sneaking of jelly beans, so that was a hit.

My older 4 were a big help with the younger crowd.  I ought to hire them out as birthday party helpers!

We made and played with Ooblek.  I wanted to make slime.  But, after making a substitute recipe for liquid starch and another for corn syrup and having an epic fail in my trial runs, we went with Ooblek instead!  My corn syrup fail did result in some pretty decent hard candy though!

Everyone was gathered around for the fun.

There was much excitement as we exploded ziploc bags.

And of course, we could not have a "science" party without the obligatory Coke and Mentos explosion.