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Birthday Schmirthday
I’m at that sour-pus old age where birthdays don’t seem so happy anymore. What’s the fun in turning thirty-four? (Anybody want to help me tweeze out a gray hair or twenty?) It’s not like it’s a big round number worth throwing a party over. And I’m too old for fussing and I’m too young be forgetting when my birthday is. I’m just at that right age to feel grumpy about it. Bah Humbug. Birthdays suck.
When I woke up this morning, on the wrong side of the bed, I was determined that today was just going to be one disappointment after another. Why wouldn’t it be? Every other birthday has been one sad story after another. I even eeked out a few tears feeling sorry for myself. Pathetic, I know.
I rolled myself out of bed, fed the baby, checked my email, threw out about twenty birthday spam emails…. and then I found a sweet e-card from whoorl. Okay, that was kind of nice. Maybe I unwrinkled one furrow from my brow and let my curled lip relax for a minute while I watched the cup cakes bounce around to the cheery music. Mmmmmm cupcakes.
By mid-morning there was a silly rhyming birthday song recorded into my voicemail. So maybe I cracked a smile. Maybe I do have a friend or two who love me. Then came some flowers and they were kind of sweet too. I even liked the arrangement and I’m picky about that sort of thing. Maybe it was the bright pink color that made me stand a little straighter and stopped my dragging feet from rubbing along the carpet so much.
By noon the house was hot and sweaty. Even the flowers couldn’t keep my royal bad mood from attacking with a vengeance so Toby sent me off to the mall to buy myself a new mouse for my laptop. Oooooh new stuff. Plus, the air conditioning in my new car is awesome. Kinda like a fresh breath from Alaska. Sometimes that makes me forget to be grumpy. That and the birthday iced mocha I bought for myself. Chocolate is yummy.
When I got to the mac store I spied a wacom tablet. Maybe a wacom tablet would be a nice birthday present. I called home to make sure. “Of course!” said Toby. “It’s your birthday!” Even though we both know that I can easily write off a wacom tablet as a business expense, I’ve just never gotten around to buying one. It makes me feel better to get his blessing.
While standing in the check out line I started to dream of all the illustrations I could make with my new wacom tablet and maybe I cracked my crooked half smile just a tiny bit bigger. Just a smidge. But still birthdays are dumb.
Then I got home and it was baby this and baby that. No time for installing any new fun computer gadgets. So it sat and taunted me. Birthday Schmirthday. I still have to change diapers and clean pureed butternut squash off the bottom of the high chair tray. Don’t be so cute when you smile at me Baby Bug. Mommy is grumpy today. Grump Grump Grump.
But then my mother-in-law and brother-in-law came over and my mother-in-law made me a cake. A cake! She didn’t have an icing tip so the letters on the cake are thick and drippy. Sort of like what it would be like if you iced it with toothpaste. But it was chocolate and homemade and if I didn’t think that was sweet then I must have a heart of cement. And then there were presents and Baby Bug was an absolute angel baby.
Okay, you win. I did have a happy birthday.
But I’m still thirty-four and I have gray hair. harumph!
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Fourth of July
FoolishnessFun
Wow. A lot has been going on lately. So much so that I haven’t had a chance to catch up and blog about it. I do want to mention that Toby and I and Baby Bug went down to the beach together and we took some family portraits… that was fun.
But the biggest news in fun is fourth of July weekend. My brother and his family came out and we all went to the madhouse that is the beach. It’s crazy. People people people everywhere! In fact main beach was so crowded with people who are from out of town, we had to pack up and leave. I seriously felt uncomfortable, like I had to sit on my purse because someone might pick pocket it. That’s way too crowded. Thankfully there is another smaller beach nearby that was only half as crowded. This smaller beach has lots of boulders and rocks that pummel your ankles to bits if you go swim in the waves, but that’s okay. I never spend that much time in the water anyway. It’s all about the sand and playing with the baby under the shade of a colorful umbrella.
Baby Bug loves the beach. I think she loves watching her cousins even more. They’re always coming up and talking to her and keeping her entertained. Later when we got back to the house I shoved in a Wallace and Gromit video to keep them entertained and Baby Bug spent the whole time watching her cousins while they watched the movie. It was funny. I should have taken a picture.
Of course no time with the nieces is complete without a lesson in physics from Uncle Toby. Last time it was making ice cream with ice and cream and salt. This time it was making explosions with mentos and diet coke. Maybe you’ve heard about it. It seems to be all the rage these days. So of course we had to make our movie (878 kb, quicktime ) too. But it’s way boring because we don’t have any big open spaces for making real exploding bottle bombs.
That sort of satisfied Toby’s need to explode things on the fourth of July. Not as fun as last year… but we had the baby’s ears to think of. After a nice pic nic on our patio (we opted not to share our food with the crowd at the beach) we headed off to the local dunes to watch some real fire works. Baby Bug fell asleep long before the show started but it was still fun to have her snuggled next to me in the sling and watch all the pretty colors with my nieces.
I learned something tonight. Before you take kids to the fireworks, always make them go to the bathroom. We had to take niece number one off to the bushes to squat and niece number too had to do a number two that could not be done in the bushes. My sister-in-law missed the entire fireworks show because she had to walk back to the car (that was very far away) to get a pull-up for the emergency poo. Good times.
“Is this what I have to look forward to?” I asked my sister-in-law. “No,” piped in Toby with all the authority of someone who does not yet have a toddler being potty trained. Well see. I know a lot from babysitting and learning from my nieces… but you can’t always have everything figured out.
