Tonight was Gregory’s birthday. Perfect weather and a fabulous get-together. After my children ate nearly the entire snack buffet, they ran and played and romped until Shep started getting that crazy look in his eyes and we knew if we didn’t go home soon, this would end in bloodshed. Or at least a really large bruise.
And now they are sleeping so soundly that I almost feel like it’s my birthday.
“Ellery, the service here is lousy.”
“I know, Scarlett. I swear I ordered my margarita at least half an hour ago. I’ve been chewing on these fingers for ages.”
“No one takes us seriously. What a racket.”
“And what does Ketch do about it? He sleeps. So typical.”
No, he’s not really playing, but he thinks he is, and that’s what’s really important, right?
He’s really starting to get his rock star shtick down, including the furrowed “don’t bother me” brow.
Yes, we did spend the whole day on the patio, and there’s more, so just bear with me.
Neko decided she and Shep were going “camping.” The high chair cover that was drying is their camp fire, and they are sitting there having a picnic, which is obviously what you do when you camp.
Before, you say anything, I just want to say that, yes, I know we need to clean the patio, and that the visual noise is bothering no one more than it bothers me. But we have kids and Ellie drinks the pool water and that’s why we have that big green cover, and those big blue tiles prevent concussions upon exiting the pool and it goes on and on, so just try to ignore all the crap in the background.
Suddenly, Neko is totally into dancing. Shep, too. This morning Neko treated us to a performance, complete with butterfly wings, tutu, and sparkly dance shoes. Over her pajamas, of course.
The moment my uncles Keith and Kevin see these photos, I have a feeling they’re going to storm into town and sign her up for some sort of lessons. And if they can find somewhere that places more focus on, oh, I don’t know, dancing, and not bedazzled outfits and heavy mascara, I’d be happy to sign her up.
In the meantime, this butterfly ballerina is doing just fine on our patio.
Okay, really nothing happened in our day that had one thing to do with the number seven, but I thought I should acknowledge it. Perhaps Dan stole all our sevens, having his birthday today and being the seventh son and all. That’s just a wacky number of sevens and he obviously used more than his share.
Tom and I split the day in a vain attempt to get caught up on that silly part of our lives that doesn’t involve work or children. Tom took the kids to his mom’s for the first part of the day. During the second half, Tom went to the Big City, and since Neko was hell-bent on going to the aquarium, we decided to head there toward the end of the day and meet up with Tom.
But not without eating dinner at The Best Pizza Place Ever That Refuses to Open a Location in our Little Tiny Town. This is a terrible photo, but I just had to illustrate that they have this window where the guys throw the pizzas in the air and wave and laugh and make faces at the kids so that you can actually breathe and your meal out is kind of, oh, I don’t know…FUN.
After Neko reenacted her beanbag scene for me, she demanded that I take more pictures. Of her. Willingly.
This never happens any more. Mostly she hides from the camera and you have to tell her you’re taking a picture of that thing right behind her in order to sneak in a halfway decent shot.
Regardless, she jumped around and posed and I wish I had known she was going to be up for a photo shoot because I would have had a better setting and lighting. But I’ll take what I can get.
Then she demanded that I get in the picture. And I’m posting them, even though my hair is a disaster and no one should have to examine their wrinkles this closely and I really need to track down the dentist about those implants. Because it’s hard to tell your child to quit hiding from the camera when you spend all your time trying to do the same thing.
This morning, while I was showering, I heard a noise in the bathroom. I looked out the shower door, and my awesome new organizational beanbag was sitting there giggling at me.
The stuffed animals? Strewn across her bedroom floor.
(Neko kindly reenacted the scene for me this evening.)
When Neko was born, lots of people bought her stuffed animals. And then we bought her a few. And then with each birthday and Xmas, the collection grew. We’ve tried to weed out, but then I struggle when something has sentimental value or it was given by a good friend.
Anyway, the kid had a stupid-big stuffed animal collection. It’s exploding all over her room. To contain it, we’ve been putting them in her fun tent, but then she doesn’t have a fun tent anymore. Which is silly.
Anyway, I was browsing through Swiss Miss a while back and stumbled upon this brilliant innvoation. Cram all your stuffed animals in this bag, and suddenly you have a bean bag chair and a clean room. Brilliant. We loaded it up today, and I think Ice Bat is enjoying his new home.
We had this big plan that tonight one of us would take Neko to the fireworks and the other one would stay home and put the others to bed. But then the weather started looking questionable, and, really, who wants to be caught in a thunderstorm far away from your car with a four-year-old, hours after her bedtime?
So we stayed home. And then we started remembering that we actually have the perfect view of the fireworks right here in our own back yard because, duh, we live in the country. And not only can we see our city’s fireworks, we can see all the ones from several towns over across the horizon. It’s really pretty spectacular. Next year we should just host a big party.
For well over an hour, we watched fireworks. Neko arranged chairs for us all and found a perfect box to hold her bug jar so her newly caught firefly could watch, too. Tom made popcorn and we talked about how sometimes it’s pretty great to be the big kid because sometimes you get to stay up late and do neat things like this.
She’s still making noise in her room and it’s nearly 11pm, so I know I’m in for one grouchy preschooler in the morning. And I may not think so tomorrow when I’m ready to hang it up and it’s not even noon, but we need to do more of these kinds of evenings.