Surviving the Birthday Weekend

It was a weekend dominated by the calendar telling me where I should be.

Friday:  Cancelled a class, "Fundamentals of Musculoskeletal Imaging" because being in Parsippany by 7:30 am and staying there until 4 pm would put me at odds with being back in Plainsboro in time for Girl Scouts at 3:15 pm.  There was also the question of where during the day would I have time to make samples of the crafts for the Girl Scouts' Crafting for the Community event so the girls could pick which three they wanted to do.  This year is our troop's first as Juniors, meaning they will be teaching the crafts to the Daisies and the Brownies.  So my morning involved hot-gluing popsicle sticks into triangles and then the triangles into Stars of David.  The first degree burns on my third finger are healing nicely.

All the while I am thinking, I did not get to Pennington Quilt Works for the Saturday Sampler on Thursday night as I had planned. A patient's appointment ran later than what was allotted in the schedule, and it was important that I not rush things along.  And there were plenty of Saturday Sampler slots on Friday and Saturday.  No problem.

The Girl Scouts meeting was fun - we're lucky, we have really nice girls who seem to approach all of the things we're doing with enthusiasm.

After Girl Scouts, Thea had to put on her shin guards, socks, shorts and cleats and head to soccer practice.

Saturday's schedule included soccer at 9 am, with both children playing on opposite sides of town.  The photo day for the soccer league was held at Thea's school, with both teams times (fortunately) within fifteen minutes of each other.  So all of us connected at the photo event so I could get Micah and Steve could go to see his mother.   Meanwhile Steve talked with Micah's friend Jeff's father and planned a play date - and it's now Saturday, and I still haven't been to PQW to collect the quilt fabric for my next square.

So after the team photos were done, talking with Jeff's father to finalize the time for the play date, I hauled Thea and Micah with me to PQW for the noon session.  Fortunately they were heavily armed with their electronic devices (Nintendos, iPods and my iPad), so sitting in the car for 20 minutes would not be torture.

And meanwhile, Saturday is Thea's 9th birthday - and the only thing I had really done to prepare is send out emails to the parents of four of her friends inviting them to join us for dinner on Friday and purchase the new versions of Pokemon Black and White.  No party bags, no cake, nothing.

At 2 pm we dropped Micah off at Jeff's and went on a mission to pick out a cake, buy stuff for the party bags and get ready.

Thea chose four boys that she has known since second grade to come along with us for dinner at the Olive Garden: Adam, Tommy, Amol and Jeffrey.  Her preference would have been to have two tables, one for parents and annoying sibling and one for herself and her boy posse.  But the Olive Garden gave us a long table in a semi-private area, which was worth the 45 minute wait.

After dinner we came home and the boys and Thea adjourned to the living room to play games on the Wii.  Tidbits overhead include:  "We can have cake after we kill off Thea," and  "You won't always be able to fight like a boy. . . ."

What I learned from this was, we could've skipped dinner, thrown a few snacks at them and let them play Wii for five hours and they would've been just as happy.  But they did seem to like the party favors - Pokemon cards, yo-yos and a super ball.

Sunday was Mandarin school for Thea and a playdate with Leland for Micah.  I got to sew a little bit, but eventually I had two little boys who wanted to sew.  So, I made a pattern and cut out four pieces that could be sewn into a person-ish shape. I then got out the fabric pens and they drew on faces.  And fangs.  And blood dripping off of the fangs.  Not quite how I envisioned the little project turning out.

Then we had to get Micah dressed up in his Tiger Cubs uniform for his first den meeting.  We made a scrapbooks and learned a few things about being a scout.  I had put a chicken in the oven so dinner was done by the time we got home.