the 3rd birthday bash

last week was the march break, every morning, i left home 20 minutes earlier to drive sienna to the lady who baby-sat her before, left the car there and took my subway to work. lui was grateful. sienna was happy. i certainly didn't have a complaint.

we just had a bash for sienna's 3rd birthday. we had 25 (11 kids) guests on saturday. i ordered over a hundred pieces of sushi & sashimi, fresh caesar salad, fruit platter (green grapes with baby tomatos). from my own kitchen, i made 50 spring rolls, roasted a 4 lb filet of salmon, baked chicken legs and fried rice with calamari. and of course we had a big cheese cake. paula happened to have a former hippie musician visiting her. his name is wiz. he came with a guitar and gave us live performance with earth-theme songs. the party was basically a hit.

sienna got a number of presents. using the gift certificate from abby and sandra, we got her the famous thomas & friends wooden train set with a battery-powered engine. i know it's for boys. in my mind though, somehow a train set is one of the symbols of a happy childhood. besides, sienna loves boyish stuff, puzzles, blocks and moving toy vehicles... we got her a remote-controled school bus on her 1st birthday. why not a train set?