Our Annual Week O' Birthdays

Over and done with. Thank God!

It was poor, poor family planning indeed that landed us with two birthdays three days apart in May. Sex in September is banned forthwith in the JEDA household for the duration of our fertile years!

There was a big party here last Monday for Missy. Tante Farmer-in-the-dell and her four brooding offspring spent Sunday night with us, thus were here for the party the following day. Farmor came. Jilly Baby and The Vibrant Ms. M were both here, families in tow. As well as Linda and her kids (I'd give Linda a clever nickname to along with all the other clever nicknames which populate my blog, except her personality somehow precludes it. Which is not to say that she isn't a lovely person and doesn't deserve a little levity in her life. It's just that, she has none. Levity, that is. Linda gives the impression of being a deeply pragmatic person who'd simply rather not fuck around with art and metaphor. Linda is Linda. Not to be confused with my Auntie Linda who has a whopping, great personality and will fuck around with just about any flight of fancy or article of whimsy I might throw at her, even if it's only to blow smoke at it and tell me to stop being such a dipshit).

Where was I?

Ah yes, Missy's party. Nice enough, I suppose, if a little hectic. My chili was divine, if I do say so myself. But a plague upon all my children who do not seem to appreciate the delectable poetry that is my Grandma Taylor's chocolate cake. Stupid children and their stupid Norwegian palates.

Moving on.

Elder Miss's 7th birthday was Thursday. She hemmed and hawed, dithered, and flip-flopped for three days over what she wanted me to make her for her birthday dinner. She went from chicken wings to spaghetti to salmon steaks and back again before finally landing on (of all things) chicken noodle soup and a spice cake. Being the really shitty mother that I am, I ignored her final request, and made grilled chicken and rice instead. She loved it...as I knew she would because I'm her mother and I know her better than she knows herself.  Chicken noodle soup..........pfft, whatever!

Her class party was Saturday afternoon at one of these monkey jungle gym type places with huge cages full of balls and slides and nets. Horrid. I was dead-set against the idea on the grounds that a) it's where she had her party last year, and b) she's just too damn old for such a place. Her rebuttal went something like a) I went to a different school and had different friends last year, and b) So-and-So had her party there just last month and we weren't too big then, and besides I rilly rilly rilly rilly rilly rilly wanna *stomp sulk pout*.

Can't very well argue with that logic now, can I? So Monkey Jungle it was.

It turned out fine. Every last one of them was pink-cheeked and sweaty by the end of it, so I think it's safe to say they all had a good time. Though at one point, I took a round about the place just to make sure everyone was still there and still behaving themselves, and found five of them (Elder Miss included) creeping about in the 2-foot crawl space between the tops of the cages and the ceiling. After I got them all safely down and told them under no circumstances were they to go up there again EVER! I asked the girl who was supposedly supervising our party how on earth they got up there. She just shook her head, seemingly baffled, "I have no idea. Kids are awfully clever, aren't they?" Yes, but one would have hoped that the geniuses who designed these contraptions were a bit more clever, don't ya' think?



So my girls are now officially a year older. And I can go ahead and start worrying about the next big to-do item on my list. Salt Lake City here we come!