The Wedding

So Ella attended a wedding last weekend. Without us. She was gone a total of 9 hours and near the end expressed her disappointment that it was almost over. And she’s only five years old....

The wedding was between two of my colleagues, Irene and Sam, whom wedded last Saturday in Kampala. The actual wedding service was at 1pm and the reception was at 5pm, in Lubowa, which is this side of Kampala and relatively close and easy to get to. I had dutifully planned on attending both but Frankie was having an unhappy morning and was actually WANTING to take a nap (unheard of!) so at the last minute (as in, we were all decked out in our going-to-meetin’ duds) I thought, “This is a dumb idea, taking a tired 3 year old to a wedding and reception which are four hours apart, in Kampala no less”. A better idea was just to attend the reception at 5pm (which would include dinner!).

Ella was jazzed and already decked out in her princess dress (rather tattered but FLUFFY and Ugandans love fluff!), pink Doggers and a crazy Afro (I’d taken her extensions hair out the day before). I didn’t want to disappoint her so called up a friend who was going and asked if she’d have room and a seat belt for one more, who was small and fluffy. No problem my friend said!

So Frank and I walked our fluffy little princess up to the main road, with her jeweled purse slung on her shoulder, filled with water, peanuts, a hankie and a princess cell phone. I must admit to getting a little choked up as I buckled her into my friends back seat. My baby! Off to Kampala without me! Gulp.

Frank took an over two hour nap, I kept picturing horrible car accidents, and after he woke up from his nap we just kind of looked at each other like, “What do we do now?” It was pretty weird without Ella around to liven up the place! I think I read more stories to Frankie than I have in the last year because we couldn’t think of anything else to do. Seriously, we’re a couple of duds!

We headed to the reception at 5pm and were enthusiastically greeted by an excited, relieved, bouncing little girl! She sprinted clear across the rather large reception room and launched herself up onto me. Glad I was prepared as wouldn’t that have been a good show – me flying over backwards with Ella in her fluffy princess dress on top!

She’d been with our friends all day as friends from the office had car pooled up to the wedding. Her idea of a good time – crammed into a car with a bunch of friends stuck in Kampala traffic. Seriously! She LOVED it! A week later I am still hearing stories at work about their trip to and from Kampala with my daughter. Yikes!

She enjoyed dancing, bouncing around chatting with friends (as in MY adult friends!) and eating cake for four hours until the reception was over. She then voiced her disappointment it wasn’t longer. Poor kid. Never gets to have any fun ; )

And Frankie? Well, lets just say that even a two hour nap and a delicious dinner couldn’t sweeten his mood up much. Thankfully we made it out without him screaming at the incredibly darling and well behaved little flower girl that accidentally stepped on his fingers... But it was close!