Thea's Birthday

I have only just started thinking about Thea's birthday - I think by this time last year we'd settled on a venue (My Gym) and made a few other critical decisions (Backyardigans theme), so all that left was the cupcakes and the party bags to round out the day. Now we're into two parties: a small one for school on her actual birthday and one for her friends.

When I was interrogating her as to any choices as to theme, she said, "People can just come as whatever they want. . ." So I had the idea, while out running errands yesterday, that we could do a Hallowe'en costume preview party: since all that effort goes into finding the right costume and the kids just where them at school and then that evening for trick-or-treating, why not give them one more chance to dress up.

Now the 'where' of the party-planning becomes an issue: if we do costumes, then a gym setting is out. God help me if some little cherub damages his or her costume two weeks before Hallowe'en. Ditto for the artsy-craftsy places, same reason. Pizza parlor party, third verse same as the first. For the number of people Thea wants, we could do it at the house, but the nice thing about doing it SOMEWHERE ELSE is you pay, and walk away.

Thea's going to be a knight for Hallowe'en, I think I'm going to stuff Micah into a puppy costume if I can find one cheap.

I'm off to cruise web sites of possible party places, and I'm reconsidering the whole costume idea. It seemed brilliant yesterday, but today upon re-examination, it's not as bright and shiny of an idea.

Happy Birthday Lucas!

Both of Thea's best school friends have turned five within the past ten days. Last weekend was Kalani's pizza parlor party (with his actual birthdate a few days prior to the party) and today we went to Lucas's party (actual birthday four days ago.) They will all be in Kindergarten together at YingHua this fall.

It was a great party because there was a huge playground to run around, and it was a semi-unstructured event. Run, play, make up your own adventures interspersed with time for pizza and juice boxes and another break for cake. And I just love Lucas because as he and his mother were putting together party bags, Lucas spoke up and said, "I don't think Thea will like the pink princess stuff." Here's a kid who pays attention to detail - and I've got to appreciate his mother as well because she had extra stuff set aside to swap out of the bag that Thea found on the treasure hunt. So my baby came running up to me happily exclaiming, "Look Mommy, a rake and a car!" This put her in such a good mood she actualy shared her party tooter-thingy with her brother.

So now the heat is on to plan Thea's 5th birthday party - both one for school, and one for her friends. Fortunately her birthday is a Monday, so we can have it in school on a day I'm not working. But it's the theme, the party favors, the cake, the ice cream, the where to have it that is all swirling through my mind. . . .

The camera and the connector is acting wonky again, so I haven't been able to upload to Kodak and put any new pictures on the blog. They're both growing like weeds, so I've got to solve my camera issues to show them off.

After Labor Day: The Return of Ela - Micah's speech instructor (I hate the title teacher of the deaf because he is NOT deaf) who is coming back from maternity leave that started around the beginning of July. We were very, very lucky to have Nancy take over for the past two months, and both Micah and I will miss her, but it will be nice to have Ela coming back to us, especially after Micah's summer speech explosion. She's going to be in for a shock, which will be kind of fun to see.

Update

Today would have been my Dad's 78th birthday, so Happy Birthday, Dad, hope you're celebrating.

The first week back from vacation is always tough, mostly for Micah. He who loves his babysitter, Lisa, almost as much as his family wailed piteously both Tuesday and Thursday when I dropped him off. So I got to go off to work cloaked in that mist of Mommy-guilt. Of course when I checked up on him, he snapped out of it once I was out of sight and got into playing with the other children. I don't know if it was truly traumatic for him, or if he was just being a bit of a Drama Queen, which he does seem to have a certain flair for.

Last Wednesday Thea and I had a wonderful afternoon on the beach and playing in the water -we had to stick pretty close to the water's edge or be eaten alive by green-head flies. I have never, ever had the experience of seeing a small dot of blood well up from a fly bite and if there was a system of voting on next species to be wiped off the planet, these pests would get my vote. We made sand castles, buried each other in the sand (to hide from the aforementioned blood-sucking pests) and collected shells. Thea started getting brave about letting the surf come up and wash over her legs. When Steve and Micah came down to the beach, Steve brought our bottle of Off!, but this brand of insect repellant seemed to be more of a marinade/condiment or aphrodisiac for the damn flies because there were more bites rather than fewer after applying the stuff.

Friday we were back at the beach, after going on a fruitless quest to both Seaside and Point Pleasant looking for miniature golf. Despite threatening skies, we had Kite-y with us, and I managed to get it airborne, though with the sky greying and a few drops of rain falling, Thea's vote was for reeling Kite-y in and going back to the beach house. Fortunately, even though we reeled Kite-y in, we stayed on the beach and the clouds and sprinkles passed and the kids had a blast terrorizing two abandoned sand heaps complete with moat and throwing shells back into the waves. And since most of the wind was coming off on the water, the green-heads were not out en masse.

Since I worked last week while commuting from the beach, getting back into the routine wasn't too hard - and the drive was cut in half even with two separate drop-offs for school/daycare. Tuesday I had a patient with a really angry sebaceous cyst between the shoulder blades. With just a little help from a #11 blade and despite being covered with two gauze 4x4s, it blew, spewing its contents three or more feet at which point it splatted on the wall. Then I covered it even better and reapplied a little pressure. And again it spewed a swath through the room. It was simply amazing. Unfortunately, our rather small exam room soon smelled like someone opened a Limburger cheese shop, and the aroma lingered even though we washed down the wall, the exam table and sprayed enough air freshener to asphixiate half the office. Even Micah knew something was up, because I got "Mommy stinky" when he put his head on my shoulder when I picked him up from the babysitter's.

And somehow word must've made it back to the Sebaceous Cyst Fairy, because Thursday I had another patient with a nice bump at the nape of the neck with a nice little puncta in the middle. This one emptied more like Silly String or Cheez Whiz, but that same tell-tale odor hung in the room afterwards. I wish the Ear Lavage Fairy would send a few people my way, that has the same delightful ookiness factor, but without the smell.

Thea is being a 'five-day' kid at school, practice for starting Kindergarten in the fall, so today was just me and Micah-man. He's going to be banned from grocery shopping soon, at least from going with me to the Lawrenceville ShopRite. Damn the grocery stores with their displays of balloons and Beanie Babies. Micah is currently in a Mylar balloon and puppy phase - and unlike Thea who is steadfastly loyal to her two white tigers, Micah is a stuffed animal polygamist. He has his #1 lovey, Bunny Bear, and then he has a small horde of sister and brother stuff animals that he also seems to be devoted to, and his philosophy is the more, the merrier. If all of his 'favorite' stuffed animals were put in his crib, there would be no room for Micah.

I was privilege to Micah's first in-mall sit-in outside of Pottery Barn Kids on Monday, protesting his mother's lack of sensitivity to his need for a life-size toy dog (and mind you, if this were the real deal, wagging its tail in front of him, he'd be quaking in his booties and clawing his way up my leg and into my arms.). I was scoping the sale items and he found two dogs, a Jack Russell and a Boston Terrier, both life-size and he was in love. He carried the Jack Russell around the store, playing with it in the PBK toy kitchen, babbling away to it, until we put it back ($34 for a stuff animal, I love my son, just not in that way). I put it back, picked Micah up and strolled out of the store and then put him down again. And he promptly sat his shapely little butt down on the pavement and pouted. So he got picked up, tucked under my arm like a football and carted back to the car. Mommy can be such an insensitive b*tch a times, all in a day's work - one more thing he can share with his future therapist if he ever gets through being adopted, the ears issue and whatever other trauma to his psyche we have inflicted on him.