A Visit with a Fairy

Yesterday (Saturday), Amelia and I went to a birthday party for Emma, one of her classmates. We took the 94 tram many stops to get near the end of our destination street. This stop was next to the Foret des Soignes ("well-groomed forest," I think), which is an enormal forest around the south part of Brussels. The forest is shaped sort of like the back of your right hand, and we were close to the inside of the thumb. "Our" street cut clear across the entire thumb (a bit over half a mile, I think), and it was really more of a pedestrian path in the woods than a real street. For various reasons, Amelia was pretty unhappy the entire time I pushed her in her stroller through the woods.

It turned out our destination was on the other side of the thumb, once again outside the woods, on the same street, but on a part of the street that actually looked like a street—complete with houses and everything!—and not like a path in the woods.

Amelia and I arrived punctually, if unhappily, at the house with the party, and we were among the first guests. A woman named Beatrice was there painting faces, and I got mine painted (a sinister moustache and a shield on one cheek) before Amelia was ready to (little blue flowers and glitter). Most of the Lilliputian guests were classmates of Amelia, but she wasn't acting all that familiar with them, and she was pretty clingy to me. As most of the time I was physically restricted by my filial attachment, my usual smooth mingling style was a little cramped—I had previously met just one or two of the other parents and kids, and I made some progress socializing, but it was frankly limited.

Beatrice ran a sort of scavenger hunt in which the kids got clues written by a fairy, and prizes with a butterfly theme. If the scavenger hunt were successfully concluded, the fairy promised in messages to visit! Afterwards, Beatrice disappeared, and then our hosts suddenly made a lot of fuss to close curtains to keep things dark, and appealed to the kids to be quiet, so the fairy wouldn't be scared away. After what seemed an eternity, the fairy dramatically arrived, with white wings, white glitter on her face, and a white dress lit up from the inside. (Astute readers may have already correctly guessed that Beatrice was in fact a fairy.) The fairy gave special attention to the birthday girl, and each kid got a bracelet. The fairy also led us in a rousing round of "Happy Birthday," which, for some strange reason, was rendered in English.

While waiting for the fairy to arrive, we had sandwiches and potato chips, and after she left we had pizza and cake. Amelia repeatedly asked me when the fairy was going to come back, but she never did. Alas! By this time, Amelia was more acclimated to the social circumstances, and coming out of her shell a bit more, but ironically it was time to leave. We took a different route back, travelling on the 92 tram, which had a stop must closer to the party. Amelia slept in the stroller almost the whole way home, while I conversed on the tram with a new acquaintance from the party.