 December 16, 2006 - Saturday
Today was Harry's 7th birthday and his dinosaur birthday party and it really turned out pretty well. I built this sand, pebble, and plaster filled sandbox in our basement and got each of the guests one of these little hammer, chisel, and goggle sets (actually, the tools came with a personal dinosaur dig sand block, which made a nice party favor at the end). In that hardened plaster-sand mixture I hide a 5-foot, 16-piece model skeleton of a Diplodocus, along with a bunch of candy-filled easter/dinosaur eggs and some small plastic dinosaurs. The idea was that the boys would dig them all out like paleontologists and basically came from the Carnegie Museum exhibit that we visited a year and a half ago and from the dinosaur dig Harry got from his birthday last year.
I actually traded emails with the Carnegie Museum and was told their exhbit was built of sand and hardened wax, although I certainly wanted something much easier to dig than that.  The dinosaur dig blocks are apparently made with sand and glue and while that's easier digging than the sand and wax it still took Harry a couple of days to dig into that last year. I tried thinning the plaster with sand and pebbles, but in hindsight it was still too tough for the kids, especially getting started through the top layer.
It actually wasn't very hard at all once they got down into it a little, but that took them a while with their little hammers. Right away it was pretty clear that I ought to "help" a little with a adult hammer and chisel to loosen things up a bit in key areas. Still even after an hours' work beforehand, the kids actually didn't unbury the entire skeleton until after the cake and presents. If I had it to do over again I would have thinned the plaster even more and probably dug the sides away a little in advance to give them more of a way in. Ironically, very few kids found any of the candy-filled eggs that I thought would have kept their interest.  Still, for the most part all my anxieties about this party - about whether this would work at all with a pack of hyper-active boys, what would happen if one of them started grumbling or looking for something else to do, and whether the entire thing would even make Harry happy - turned out to be unfounded. Overall I think it all went pretty well because the kids (all but one anyway and he just sat) stayed at it until it was time for cake, although the last five minutes or so kids started to get up and move around looking for something else to do. Most importantly, Harry seemed to like it and stayed quite committed to the digging that entire time. While the boys were eating cake and opening presents I went around with an even bigger hammer and really made it easy to get at the remaining bones so at least when they came down again they could see the entire skeleton.
Since it was such a nice day, we actually started with the boys all running around outside and then finished the party outside with a little volcano experiementing with baking soda, dish soap, and vinegar and then a big finish of Diet Coke and Mentos.  You just can't go wrong with that and a bunch of kids and I think it turned out to be a perfect way to finish the party. Ian and his dad actually stayed after the party for almost two more hours (that may sound awful, but it was my idea that they stay. They're both such good, thoughtful people) digging up all the eggs and plastic dinosaurs with Harry and Jeremy and then helping bring some small part of the sand (that will be another huge project!) out of the basement. After all the effort and anxiety leading up to the party lingering guests was probably the last thing I might have hoped for, but Ian and his dad are both so nice that I was the one to tell them to stay. It actually made it a little easier to wind down.
We saved a couple of family presents for after dinner
and this expression (left) pretty much tells the story about how much Harry liked Grandpa John's remote control builder set. Harry played with this until bedtime.
 His mother and I also gave him a remote control building set from Zoob. It turned out Harry knew about this companu's products from school although it's unclear whether he knew about this remote control car building set. Still, I think this present was almost surely a letdown for Harry and maybe the somewhat puzzled expression (right) shows that. Harry has wanted a Lego plane for severel weeks. Worse than that, for Harry anyway, Jeremy got the "blue jet" for his birthday and that meant that, while Harry has certainly played with it a great deal since, Jeremy was the one that got to build it first. We tried to let Harry help, but he just does it so much faster than Jeremy that it just didn't make sense and his mother tried to find him another activity. From that time until now, Harry has been harping about wanting the "red jet" that comes with an entire airport and he surely thought this Zoob box was going to be it. It turns out that we did get it but are saving it until Christmas and, in hindsight, I wonder about it. It will all work out in the end, but how much can a 7-year-old learn about patience anyway?
 I asked Harry whether he liked his party. Actually, I asked him twice, once after Ian left and once at bedtime. Both times he said the same thing: "It was the best party ever."
Can't hate that!
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