Vijf – Five | hetbelgischekoekje

Olive is turning five next month. A very important milestone for her and for us as a family. I have to admit to having had feelings of sadness about this birthday however, as being in Belgium has somewhat dulled it’s momentousness (yes that is a word!) Turning five does not hold the same significance here as it does in New Zealand.
Stories are starting to come in from home about Olive’s friends celebrating the big 5 and embarking on that universal rite of passage – the first day of primary school. Friends from her Montessori class, the Plunket groups we were part of, children we met as newborns in our antenatal group and friends we made during our five years in Wadestown, are all blowing out five candles, donning their backpacks and heading through the doors of the New Entrants classroom. Here in Belgium, Olive won’t start primary or lagere school, until September 2012 when she will be nearly 6 and a half.
Olive of course is not having any of these thoughts – she is just super excited about having a birthday! So I’m taking a leaf out of her book, telling myself to get over it and make the day momentous regardless.
Thus a birthday party is being planned and all good birthday parties start with an invitation. I was sent into town with strict instructions about princesses and ballerinas and maybe Hello Kitty as a backup if the princesses and ballerinas weren’t forthcoming – mummy was feeling the pressure! Unfortunately the princesses and ballerinas weren’t forthcoming but I managed to stumble across something that I thought would do the trick.
Here in Antwerp we have the most wonderful toy store which goes by the name In Den Olifant or In The Elephant, and I wasn’t surprised to find just what I needed here…

Do it yourself birthday invitations!

For a girl who in the words of her Juf or teacher could “spend all day drawing, colouring, painting, collaging, creating etc” it was the perfect choice and yesterday she spent a busy afternoon adding her own special touch to what was in the kit.

If only there had been things like this when I was a kid.

Only the girly colours made it to the final cut - sorry orange/oranje and red/rode.

Hard at work. Edie was allowed to decorate one of the discarded ones!

Olive has chosen to invite children we have met through the Expat group I joined and also five children from her class. Because of this I wanted the invitations to be written in Dutch. Luckily In Den Olifant provided an easy solution. They had some very small and simple invitations with all the important info ie. you have been invited to, where and when, RSVP etc written in Dutch. I cut these out, glued them onto the cards from the kit and Volia! we had our Flemish invites.
I really hope that all the children from her class will come. Olive really deserves a great celebration after all the bravery she has shown since starting kleuter school and the fact that she chose five kindjes from her class shows how well she has done at fitting in and making friends. She was so excited as she headed off to school this morning clutching the precious cards.