In which we attend a birthday party

Yesterday, around 1:00, Sapphire's friend Blanche rang our buzzer. When I answered, she asked whether Sapphire, Ezio, and Cherry could come to a birthday party for her cousin that afternoon. We had planned to go into Paris with my mom that afternoon, so I wasn't sure whether they would want to or not, so I asked Blanche to wait a minute while I checked with Sapphire. Sapphire definitely wanted to go, and Cherry thought that maybe she would like to go (Blanche's sister is in Cherry's class at school) as long as I went with her. Ezio definitely did not want to go, but my mom said she would spend some time with him. Sapphire let Blanche know that we would be coming.

The party was scheduled to go from 3:00 until 5:00 (actually until 6:00, as it turned out, but I either misheard or mistranslated what Blanche told me). That meant that we had about 2 hours to eat lunch, buy something to cook for dinner, and pick out some sort of gift. Lunch was easy, as it basically involved reheating the previous night's leftovers, and dinner was planned, though we didn't have the ingredients on hand yet. The gift was more of a problem. Blanche's extended family all lives together in her apartment, and while I knew that she is 9, her little sister is 3, and her older sister is 15 or 16, I had no idea whether the cousin having the birthday was a boy or a girl, or what age s/he was. We went to the Auchan, and settled on a box of colored pencils, and a notebook of drawing paper as a suitable gift. We figured that at least that was a relatively flexible gift, as far as age and gender went, and I was guessing that the birthday child was probably not older than Sapphire and Blanche or the younger 2 would never have been invited.

We got home, and my mom helped Sapphire wrap the gift while I put the groceries away. Sapphire changed into a dress, and we walked next door to Blanche's apartment building for the party. Blanche's older sister let us in, and we were surrounding by running preschoolers and adolescents. It was fairly obvious why Blanche had wanted Sapphire to come; they were the only kids between 5 and 15 who were there. The kids all danced to very loud music, and I tried to figure out who the birthday child was. Finally, I asked Blanche, and discovered that it was twins! Oops. That was not a possibility that I had planned for!

Sapphire and Blanche had a lot of fun running around and dancing. Cherry wasn't sure what to think. Mostly she sat on my lap and watched what was going on. I finally had the opportunity to ask where Blanche's family is from. Answer: Ivory Coast. She may actually have been born there. I'm not exactly sure. Around 5:00 we left because I needed to make dinner, and because I was feeling slightly guilty about abandoning mom.