Slip Sliding into Nine

This is a photograph from Mam's actual birthday. As is tradition in our house, I let her go pick out nine cupcakes at Sprinkles for the big day. Unfortunately, it was a really big day for her, with a new running program starting after school and overlapping with one of her first softball practices of the season. We had a late dinner out. She chose Afghan food...at the same restaurant where we'd eaten for my birthday just a month earlier. I was pretty sure she despised anything that didn't look like cheese pizza, quesadillas or macaroni and cheese. Perhaps she really is growing up.

But I digress. Thankfully, I'd planned Mam's birthday party for the weekend before her actual birthday and her cake was done in plenty of time. None of the midnight cake decorating that has gone on in more ambitious years.


The cute little local ice rink doesn't open for parties or public skating until 3pm. It's a great little spot with an outdoor rink. It's been there at least since I was a kid. I remember thinking it was a pretty magical place back then.

 It's not quite as magical when you're throwing a party and doing less of the skating. I made hot chocolate (and brought marshmallows, of course), brought the extra strawberries (which disappeared in minutes), some emergency cheese sticks and the cake. I figured that would be plenty for a two hour party. And it was...except that I should've brought more strawberries and less hot chocolate! The kids all drank hot chocolate, of course, but I probably brought enough to fill a swimming pool.Thankfully, I did get in a little skating with the birthday girl. 

She had a great time and only came off the ice for cake. All her best friends were there. She even invited a few boys...beause they're friends, not because she likes them...of course!

Sometimes, the parties I've had at home have felt interminable, but parties somewhere else always feel too short and like I didn't have to work hard enough to make it terrific. Funny that these are the ones they generally like the best! At least a few of them made sure I didn't get to be too much of a slacker!

Mission Bay and Cupcakes with a Side of Baseball

Initially, we'd thought we might head out to some waterslides on our last day in San Diego, but upon further investigation, there was so little than SPENCER! could do in a place like that that the kids reconsidered and decided to spend the day with their cousin rather than doing one of their very favorite things. It was a sweet moment. So, instead, we joined Uncle David and SPENCER! at the park at Mission Bay while Aunt Karen went to an appointment nearby.I hadn't seen a dome like this one since elementary school. The kids loved it, especially Mam. SPENCER! was pretty excited too.Mam was also very happy to pose on top of this climbing structure.After spending some time at the park, we headed for lunch. About that time, I started fielding phone calls from the shipping company that was delivering the school supplies I'd ordered for the kids' school at home. The delivery guy was at the school, but no one else was there to let him in. Greaaat. So I ran around like a crazy woman for a few minutes, taking calls on my cell, taking calls on Daddy's cell, getting access to my e-mail on Daddy's iPhone, looking up the principal's cell phone number. After a slightly frantic 15 minutes or so, it was all taken care of. We had lunch, then went to the pool in Aunt Karen's neighborhood. I didn't take my camera, so no pictures, but it made for a mellow afternoon.

And after dinner, we visited this rather fantastic place:Because what could be better than a combination of cupcakes and baseball? And oh, they were fabulous!I hadn't even intended to get one for myself, but it was oh-so-good! The kids agreed.

Baby Cakes

I have a friend who's kind of crazy. This surprises you? She may have caught it from me because she's developing a rather particular kind of crazy. One day last week, she gave me a call, "What are you doing after pick-up?" she asked, referring to the time post-kindergarten. I had lunch plans and Mam was scheduled to be elsewhere, but I was curious. Turns out, she was making cupcakes to celebrate her kindergarten teacher's last day at school before maternity leave.

She and I have different kindergarten teachers. You know that because you haven't heard me whining about losing yet another kindergarten teacher just weeks before the end of school.

Anyway, my friend needed help. I think she'd gotten into a project without appreciating its complexity. I offered to come over after my lunch date and help her finish up.

Oh, my gosh, what fun! These were seriously adorable little cupcakes. Why she needed to do this when she'd already arranged and pulled off a baby shower for the same teacher, I just don't know, but they sure were cute! And I got to help by piping on eyelashes and hair..on little mini Nilla wafers stuck to half marshmallows. Awesome!

Not Feeling Great at Eight

After our post-ski/post-reading soak in the hot tub on Smunch's birthday, I threw together a decidedly un-gourmet meal of spaghetti, green beans and sourdough. Smunch was still grumpy. He caught Mam's nasty cold, had a rotten cough and was tired from a day on the (teeny, tiny) slope. But it was the requested birthday meal and he seemed to enjoy it, right down to the sauce from a jar. The love for piles of pasta hasn't diminished in the past year, at least.

Looking back at my post from Smunch's 7th birthday, I realize that this year didn't really hold a birthday candle to last year's fun, mellow day. But the one thing I wanted to be sure to repeat was the cupcake idea. Not wanting to make a trek up to Sprinkles before we left in the morning I spent a ridiculous amount of time looking for a place with great cupcakes along the way to Tahoe. I found Icing on the Cupcake in Rocklin. It wasn't far off the path and they had some fun (and yummy!) cupcakes to choose from. We picked out...you guessed it...eight. I see this becoming and expensive little tradition!The cupcakes are still a big hit.

There weren't a lot presents to open. We've promised Smunch a trip to the sporting goods store to get new baseball gear. And, of course, he had a day of ski school...but I'd argue that was as much for Daddy (who is trying to cultivate some skiing partners) as it was for Smunch. Still, he loved the few presents he got, including a book of great sporting moments from Grandpa Ryderand the entire Baseball documentry by Ken Burns. Don't doubt me. He'll eat this up.Just like those cupcakes.

Little Lanterns

There are a lot of days when I don't really pride myself on what I've done with my daughter between kindergarten pickup and 2nd grade pickup. If I'm lucky, she has a playdate. If I'm exceedingly lucky, it isn't here and I get a little extra time to do my own thing. But most days, she and I are just here.

I know what you're saying. "Oh, how lovely to have time to spend alone with your youngest." Well, kinda. I mean, it would be if I didn't often feel like web surfing is more important than another game of Candy Land. Because, you see, Mam likes to be entertained. She likes interaction. She'll play games with you until your mind is so numb, you can't possibly see straight to fix dinner. She's "fun" that way. And I'm usually too lame to take advantage of the time I have with her.

But one day last week, she asked before we got home if we could do an art project together. It's one thing not to come up with a fun activity to do with your kindergartner before her brother gets home. It's quite another to refuse a specific request for one.

Fortunately, Daddy and I do a lot of shopping at the Klutz fundraiser sale each year. Klutz is based nearby, so they just unload their warehouse of a bunch of their fun titles. They sell them at full price, but give the amount of your purchase to the school of your choice. It's not a bad deal, really.

So, we had some crafty little books stored away upstairs. I'd been looking forward to putting together some little paper room lanterns for Mam's room and this was the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, they were fairly advanced for her, so I made the folds and had her squish them into creases. She loved it and she was happy and engaged the whole time, thinking up which lantern we should put together next.

In the end, she had a really cute little garland of lanterns that we strung on her headboard.She was thrilled with them and so excited to turn them on when she went to bed. So cute!

And when Smunch got home, the two of them made cupcakes. I had Mam do that mostly on her own with some help from me where she really needed it and help from Smunch when he felt so inclined. But she had to tell me what to do. I ended up using the mixer to just blend up the dry cake mix and a few other fun little asides, but in the end, they had cupcakes. Cupcakes with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.

(Of course, that means there were two dozen cupcakes lying around. After a few days, I had Daddy take them to work...leaving just enough for dessert that evening. That worked well.)

And, for a change, I felt like I'd done a few "good mom" things. Things I wish I did every day. The monotony of parenthood would be less if I put in this kind of effort every day. And the laundry would never get done, e-mails would never be written, appointments would never be made and the garden would languish. How is it that I can't even do it all when I don't have a job?

Nevermind. All those little lanterns sure make both Mam and me happy!

SAHB - Stay At Home Birthday

Aside from the startling realization that my firstborn is now seven years old, I learned a few choice little things this week. Chief among those things was that having Smunch's birthday party two weeks before his actual birthday was totally inspired. Of course, I had no clue at the time, but when Smunch's real birthday rolled around on President's Day, it was mellow and so much fun!

All weekend, I'd been looking forward to Monday. I had some great birthday surprises planned that I knew Smunch would love. On the downside, President's Day was closely preceded by Valentine's Day (aka: another sugar overload) and also marked the beginning of Winter Break (aka: ski week). That meant we had two kids with horrendous behavior ALL weekend long. It took some of the joy out of my plans, but by Sunday night, I was looking forward to Monday morning again.

Thanks to one of my friends who knows about Smunch's love of sports, I was alerted to this awesome set of Major League Baseball bedding (thanks CSB!). I hatched a plan to surprise Smunch first thing by removing him from his bed in the middle of the night, hanging framed photos of his baseball heroes on his wall and changing all his bedding. The room went from this...to this...The ribbon on the center picture is because this is the only brand new one of the three. He was given the other two earlier, but we'd never hung them up. Lest you think we were banging on the wall, I actually did all the work of putting the nails in the wall while Smunch was at school a few days earlier. Once we were done, we brought him back from our bed to his.It'd be an exaggeration to say he didn't wake up at all, but he certainly went right back to sleep. I left a pack of baseball cards on the throw pillow at the end of his bed and then went to sleep, trying to keep one ear open for whenever he got up.

We missed the moment when he figured out that he had a brand new baseball room. I'm not sure if he was onto us from the beginning or if he noticed when he got up to pee around 4am. He said he didn't want to come in and tell us because he knows we like to sleep. Nice kid.

When he got up in the morning, Daddy and I both thought he hadn't noticed the new decor, but a little while later, we overheard him giving Mam a tour of his new baseball room, ripping into his baseball cards and telling her which team each player was from. He read all the team names from his new quilt to her. He was pretty psyched and it was awesome to hear.

Not surprisingly, I really wasn't up for making Smunch a fancy new cake. After his birthday party and my birthday, we'd had an awful lot of cake around the house already. Instead, I decided to take him (just him and me) to this place...and let him pick out seven cupcakes. It was so cute!And then...well, then I dragged my poor little birthday boy to exchange some clothes at J.Jill...which meant he had to wait around while I tried stuff on. The saleslady was super nice and offered us the handicapped dressing room, where Smunch laid down on the bench while I tried on clothes. After all the horrible behavior of the previous few days, it was unexpected and a huge relief. I got some new clothes and indulged in my serious shopping vice, stopping in Gymboree to see if they had a particular line of baby girl clothes on sale. They did and I managed not to buy anything. But...on the way out, I spotted these boy's pajamas...on sale!OMG. Smunch loved these and it was so much fun to just say "Hey, buddy. It's your birthday and you can totally have those." Besides, after all the effort put into the baseball room, who could resist some baseball jammies??

I got out of the mall with no more damage done. We went home, Gram and Grandpa came over for some present opening.Smunch got a new remote-controlled dinosaur, a motor for his erector set, a old-fashioned game of Battleship and a kit for a solar powered car. He loved it all. He didn't love that he had to stop playing with his new toys and go to a swim lesson...at least he didn't love it until he got there and found that you get a free cookie on your birthday!

As soon as we got home, we left again to meet Gram and Grandpa at Smunch's favorite Italian restaurant. Italian because Italian means noodles and he may never outgrow his ridiculous love of all things noodle.More than anything, though, he wanted the staff to make a big deal out of his birthday. It took some patient waiting, but I think he found it worth it. Don't you?Of course, he hardly needed a sundae with all those cupcakes at home. But it didn't stop him from digging into the chocolate marshmallow cupcake he'd picked out for himself.Before he went to bed, Daddy and I got an unsolicited big hug and "Thank you for my great birthday!" Couldn't ask for anything more than that.

There was no big party, no friends, not a lot of presents to unwrap, but I think this will go down as one of my favorite birthdays for my kids ever! Hopefully, Smunch will remember it that way too. Happy birthday, buddy!