We spent today trying to keep Ellie’s birthday gifts hidden despite it being her actual birthday.

Questions all week leading up to her birthday ranged from, “Am I getting my presents from my family on my party day (the day before her birthday) or my real birthday?” to “When I get my presents from my friends at my party, will I also get the presents from you and Daddy?” and lastly, “Will you guys be bringing my presents to my party, then bringing them back home so I can open them the day after my party on my real birthday or will you just leave them at home or, how does that work?” The rephrasing of the same question wasn’t fooling anyone but her persistent attitude was almost enough to make us cave.

The hardest part was today, her actual birthday the day after her actual party when the gifts had been promised. The problem was, Hanna was at school all day and we didn’t want to rush things in the morning, nor did we think it was fair that Hanna miss the grand unveiling of the day-after-the-actual-party gifts on this, the day of her sister’s actual birthday.

I tried to keep Ellie busy all day until her snooping bested me and I found her in the front hall closet, knee deep in the second drawer where two of her wrapped boxes had been hiding.

When I asked her to come out of the closet she said, “I can’t Mommy. This is where I come to think. I need to close the door and have some privacy please.”

For the next several hours she asked, “So, um, are those two boxes all of the gifts or….are there any more….or, are those even for me?”

As if the waiting for her older sibling wasn’t torture enough, we still had swimming lessons and dinner to get through before we would have time for gifts.

At the restaurant, she made sure everyone within a three block radius knew she was now six.

For starters, she asked for a piece of paper and pen in the car where she tore off a corner and wrote a giant “6” which she then stuck with a Band-Aid to her coat. At the very least, it was an interesting conversation starter.

She would whisper as we stood at reception, “Tell them it’s my birthday okay?” so I would respond, “I will tell them it’s your sixth birthday Ellie” so everyone could hear and then she would blush and say, “Ma-Um!” but squeeze my hand like we had planned this clever trick for days.

She must have asked if the wait staff was going to sing to her at least forty-eight thousand times throughout the course of the meal. If they weren’t harmonizing in the kitchen from the second we arrived I sensed disappointment.

Sure enough they sang and even had Ellie stand on her chair.

When everyone clapped, before she even blew out the candles she said, “I saw the guy over there spinning a prize wheel for his birthday. Am I getting that or is it just for adults?”

This was one excited six year old, but nothing could prepare her for the present she’d been anticipating all year.