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Party Crashing (Niece-Appropriate Post)

(if I'm going to write about her, I figure she should be able to see what I'm saying)

This weekend was my niece's 10th birthday party. I had promised her last year to come down for the big one-oh, and one must honour one's commitments to children. They may look like they aren't paying attention to you when you speak, but then they repeat something you said in passing under your breath to yourself, and you realize they are like owls -- except, while owls appear to be all eyes, kids are all ears.

Thus ends the extent of my first-hand knowledge of kids. I have only my own experiences as a child myself for all other opinions.

Speaking of my own experiences, I wish I had had a birthday party with Dance Dance Revolution for PS2 when I was a child. Oh, how my mother wouldn't have had to plan any other single thing for my parties -- just plug in the game, and go out for a quiet dinner with Dad content in the knowledge that when she returned we wouldn't have even noticed we had been left alone with the good china cabinet and her beloved soapstone carving of an Eskimo hunter. (I broke the soapstone carving when I was 11 by doing the mexican hat dance, which I had learned that day at school, around the dining room table. I say Mom should have seen this coming, and not have placed the dining room table in such a manner that it taunts a young girl into doing a mexican hat dance around its circumference. Surprising, she sees this differently.)

(btw, my brother and sister-in-law did plan more things than just the PS2 -- including a movie premiere complete with red carpet and paparazzi, and a mocktails drink station next to a decorate-the-cookie-yourself station.)

So here's some of my favourite pictures from this weekend -- none of which include the aforementioned brother because he appears to be under the impression that he was raised in a far-off Amazonian jungle village that believes if you take his picture you've stolen his soul and if you post this theft on the internet then anyone can control him like a voodoo doll ... or whatever. But the picture I can't show you of my 6'4" brother playing Dance Dance Revolution with a 10-year old cutie who can't be more than 4'2" definitely qualifies as a favourite (and was a feat to get them both in the frame).

I love the anticipation on my niece's face as she starts to open the present I got her:

Until I see that I obviously wrapped it a bit too tightly...


And here is my sister-in-law and niece taking a mother-daughter moment.

And the result of a hard day dancing.

So now I'm back home, in the midst of the things that I haven't brought myself to unpack after my move at the top of the month. I'd take a picture and show you, but there are some things people just shouldn't see lest they never look at you the same way again. I guess like my brother challenging his daughter's friend to a dance-off.

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