My daughter Pippa turned seven today! Doesn’t that sound freaking ancient?

Pre-Corona, my girl had some serious birthday plans. All year, her first grade classmates have been bringing in small gifts to celebrate their birthdays. Pippa picked out some oversized bubble wands at Target a few weeks ago and was so excited to distribute her gift.

Obviously that did not happen today.

Pippa was also very excited to host her cat-themed birthday party this coming Sunday, but thanks to Corona, that event has been indefinitely postponed as well.

It sucks. But my girl is handling these challenges like a champion. When I broke the news that we had to postpone her party, she was disappointed. She wanted some certainty about when it would happen. I could not give her that certainty. But after a few minutes of venting, she was good to go and moved on. She has not complained about her delayed party since.

And today, we had fun! I got her a ridiculously huge cat balloon; she opened presents; Nathan got bagels for breakfast; we had pizza for lunch; we went outside for a photo shoot (my girl loves to pose); we got an ice cream cake; and we gave the middle finger to formal home schooling. (Because hey, if a pandemic is going to shit all over my daughter’s birthday, there’s no way I’m going to make her do math.)

Some fun details I want to remember:

• We put Pippa’s birthday candles in a bagel so she could still get the experience of blowing out candles without spraying mystery germs all over the cake.
• Pippa was serenaded several times during the day, including over Facetime twice. I need to make an effort to use Facetime to stay in touch with friends and family. Isolation is no bueno.
• Her best friend played Happy Birthday on her keyboard and texted the video to Pippa. (Well, my friend texted the video to me. You probably already guessed that. Now I’m rambling. Shit.)
• Another friend sent a gift by way of Amazon after Pippa’s party was postponed. How sweet! Note to self: if this pandemic quarantine continues much longer, I’m going to send gifts to all the friends stuck at home on their special day.
• Pippa wore a fancy dress all day. She is not one for fancy dresses very often, but she wanted to feel special so there you go.

Everything is weird. Here in California, the governor suggested the kids might not go back to school in the fall. That is utterly mind boggling. So fuck it, I’m not thinking that far ahead. I can, at most, handle thinking about three days ahead at a time.

When this is over, we’ll throw Pippa’s Post-Pandemic Party. (Ooh, so much beautiful alliteration there!) But for today, I think we hit her birthday out of the park and gave her some special memories even in the middle of all this weirdness.

Happy Birthday, Pippa!