Parabens!

Parabéns-10 de June

 

We went to our first Brazilian birthday party for our new friend’s 2 year old.  The invitation read 3-6 pm so I was feeling quite guilty when we were waking Fiona from an unusual nap at 2:55 and I didn’t get into the shower until 3-oops.  The party was at a clubhouse room in an area we had never been to, so we were sure we would get lost once or twice during the drive there.  We arrived around 3:45, more than a bit tardy I was sure…but we Americans are so obsessed with time that our arrival time was more appropriate than any earlier time would have been.  (*sorry I am very tired and the words aren’t coming very easily tonight).  Around 4:30 a huge rush of guests showed up, mostly extended family.  There were probably 75 people there for the party.  The family had hired a company- as is very common for upper middle class folks to do- to decorate, cater, serve (finger food and drinks) and offer face painting and balloon animals for the kids.  There was ballon art (arches, flower bouquets etc all over the room and a Strawberry Shortcake (SS) shrine complete with almost life-sized characters all over a nice decorated table and SS backdrop behind that.  It was something!   Oh yes there was also a photographer snapping away for hours and hours.

We spent a lot  of the party outside on a near-by playground with most of the other young guests.  Fiona has given up speaking to potential playmates, but smiles, helps and follows along in a universal language that seems to work.  One little girl pointed to Teague and asked me, “Does he really only speak English?  He is so little how did he learn to speak English so well?” Honestly, I wasn’t sure if she was questioning his lack of Portuguese know-how or commenting on his verbal brilliance, but non-the-less I reassured her that he grew up in a country where English is spoken and that he’ll learn Portuguese the little by little.  She continued to stare at him in awe- Chris and I do that too but for other reasons. J  (While we’re on the subject of our son, he is called Chee-gee here.  T’s are usually the CH sound and E’s at the end of words are almost always pronounced… so Chee-gee it is.  We love the Celtic name Teague (little poet) and hope that its original pronunciation wins out in the long run.)  I guess it evens out a bit because as far as he’s concerned the name of the language is porkageez (pork-ah-geez).

The party was fun and relaxed and a few of Chris’ co-workers were there with their families so we were able to meet them and get to know them a bit better.  As with a party anywhere when you have 2 kids, mostly we spent time taking turns watching them and interacting with others as was allowed.  At a little after 6pm we sang Happy Birthday to the birthday girl (dressed up as SS at this point).  It happened to be her mother’s birthday too so we sang again to her and then it was also an Aunt’s b-day on the first of June and Teague’s had been on the 7^th so we joined the birthday display behind the SS figurines and the guests sang to Aunt and Teague too!  It was very nice.    Fiona’s pre-school teacher in Rockville was Brazilian and so every time the celebrated a birthday (17 times!), they sang in Portuguese and English so Fiona is always thrilled to sing Parabéns.  Brazilians clap as they sing it and usually sing it twice, the second time through really picks up in tempo.  It ends with the birthday honoree’s name being chanted.  Fun right?  I’ll teach you sometime if Fiona doesn’t beat me to it!