This weekend recovering from birthday week, I’ve concluded that this might have been the easiest birthday party ever planned for my daughter. Just a few friends, dinner in a restaurant, scavenger hunt at a local department store and a sleepover. No theme, no games per se, I just made sure they had food and clean sheets. They entertained themselves for the most part playing video games and laughing at each others jokes and stories. Did I miss the elaborate planning? Sort of. Did I miss the trip to the party store with her, looking through all the licensed party wares and goodie bag trinkets? Sort of. This could mark the end of an era with my daughter.

This is just the beginning of another phase, of driving girls to the mall, taking goofy “runway model” pictures by storefront windows, girls running into my house, barely saying hello and running up the stairs into my daughter’s bedroom and shutting the door. The beginning of lots of hush-hush and shush-ing when I knock on the door to check on them, and lots of giggling too. Dare I say, the beginning of the tween years? In the end, my husband and I really loved seeing her have so much fun with her friends.

Happy birthday, my little roundhead.