Happy Birthday, Mom!

The cake from Charles Street Bakery, with the image from the invitation on it.

This weekend was the surprise 80th birthday party for my mother. My brother had plans in the works for months, and the closer it got to the actual event, the more afraid I became of spilling the beans because with age it just seems harder to hold all the threads of the half-truths, lies and deceits that were told. What came easily in adolescence is much more difficult with the passing of thirty-some years.

The first lie was that my husband had a seminar at one of the DC-area universities so he was also coming down for the weekend. Most of the time it's just me and the little heathens making the trip. Next since the "seminar" was work-related, there could be a hotel room for us - necessary because my mother's cousin was coming into town from Florida for the party, so she would be moving from the hotel to Mom's guest room on Saturday so it would not have been a good idea to have my little army invade for a night and then decamp for a hotel. Mom was already going to stress that her house was not ready for company, and so Hurricane Micah would need to make landfall elsewhere.

Second lie, if we're only going for the majors, we were going to be having lunch with Lorrie, my friend and former housemate, but it would need to be later in the afternoon because she had plans for the morning. This was the cover story for not going out until a little bit later than we usually do. I also said I wanted to go to the Blue Crabs' stadium to get t-shirts (a small truth amidst all of the fudging.) Then I mixed into that another falshood that I had spoken with my sister-in-law and she had said that there was an event at the stadium where they were giving away free passes to the children's play area. She wouldn't be able to go (another small truth, she had a class), but my brother and nephew would be going and they wanted extra passes so could we time our stadium trip to the time they would be there.

Meanwhile, after having dinner at Mom's Friday, we went back to the hotel and met up with Mina, Mom's cousin who came from Florida for the party. And the kids met her as well - now we had another cat that had to be kept bagged up. Fortunately Thea claimed she was so tired that she had already forgotten Mina's name.

Saturday morning Thea and I were up early to run errands; ATM machine, gas up the car, stop at the bakery to pay off the cake (which my brother had already done by the time we arrived at 8:10.) So we had croissants and went back to the Best Western to have breakfast with Mina, Steve and Micah before heading over to Mom's Saturday morning.

At Mom's we're making up our agenda for the day: SafewayBlue Crabs' stadium store, Kohl's, lunch with Lorrie. As we're getting ready I'm trying to stall a little bit because the longer I have to keep everyone in motion before our arrival at the stadium, the more likely it is that I am going to let the cat out of the bag.

Thea picked that moment to come unglued about not being able to play a round of Candyland at Oma's and she pitched a rather spectacular hissy-fit. Tear, recriminations, snot, more tears, all with major splashes of whining. This DID NOT help with plans to get on the road because my mother was not going to sit in the car with a fit-throwing child. So as Mom is getting ready and gathering up her stuff, I am hissing major threats in Thea's ears about what will happen if she blows the surprise.

I tossed both kids in the car with a few more threats heaped on Thea's head and went in to tell Mom that everything was fine. By the time she ambled out to the car, everything was not fine, we were on to Round #2 of Tears/Snot/Recriminations, but by then I was hissing at my mother that SHE wasn't going to make me go through this alone, so she'd better get her butt in the car. NOW.

It is now 12:40 pm. The stadium is about five minutes from Mom's house. I am starting to sweat, because even with a stop at the SunTrust ATM at Safeway, we have time on our hands. Time the guests need to find their way to the party suite. Fortunately Thea is almost back to her pre-hissy fit state after being allowed to go with me to the ATM and punch in the PIN, etc.

So we head to the stadium, and instead of taking the ever so convenient back roads, I take Route 301. As we are heading about half way to the turn off, the lightbulb goes off: Mom, do you think that the White Plains post office still might have the Lunar New Year stamps? (And you thought that I wasn't going to mention LNY again until 2010!) So we pulled in to the post office: Closed as of 12 noon. Then Mom comes up with the idea to try the Waldorf post office. Genius! It will take at least ten minutes to get there, a few minutes in the post office, and ten minutes back. Amen, problem solved. Further erosion of my newborn ulcer averted.

Except that my mother knew that I bought quite a few sheets of LNY stamps during our last trip. So add another lie to the pot, there are fewer stamps per sheet (true) and I've used them up. (I did use a couple of sheets to mail out the invitations to her surprise party, but I still have at least three or four.) At the post office, again I let Thea come with me, because she's gotten her act together so I need to enlist her help at the stadium and heap a little praise on her head to do my bidding at when we get to crunch time. We also bought two more sheets of LNY stamps - and with rates going up again in May 2009, I will probably be buying one- or two-cent stamps to be able to use them all up.

Now we head to the stadium. It's a gray, cool, drizzly day. The weather was not festive in the least. So when we arrive in the parking lot there are a few cars - which does give it the appearance of something going on. I pull in and swing wide through the lot not knowing how much (or little) my mother would pay attention to the other cars there (cousins with NC plates, more cousins with Virginia plates, a set of Pennsylvania plates, her neighborhood friends' cars).

I'm ready to head in and get this over with. Let's shout SURPRISE and be done. Let Karl take over responsibility for Mom as the organizer and host of the party. Someone, buy me a drink.

But we are talking about my mother. "You go and find out where this thing is, because I am not getting out this car just to wander aimlessly through the stadium." So I go out on the reconnaisance mission.

Thea and I trot out into the drizzle right as one of my mother's friends is coming up the other part of the sidewalk. I am hoping that my mother is chatting with Micah and not looking in the rear view or side view mirrors or we're screwed right as we're heading to the finish line.

We stop into the stadium office, a staff member points us out to a suite along the third base line, the friend goes off to join the guests and Thea and I head back to the car to get Oma and Micah. And Micah is out cold, fast asleep. Nice. I have to fold up the lump and stuff him into the umbrella stroller.

So Micah gets unceremoniously plunked in his stroller and Oma gets to push him (versus using her cane), and we make the trek back to the party suite.

Right as we're coming to the building, two ladies, one carrying a helium container (giving me the clue she's the person my brother made arrangements with to do the decorating) start heading our way. But she was on the ball when she saw my face, she comes up with, "Are you here for the coupons? They are SO disorganized, everyone's waiting around, I'm going off to have lunch and come back.) Nice cover story, promising future in covert ops if her party decorating sideline goes belly-up.

So we head in to the foyer area, Thea and I in the lead, Mom and the stroller-bound Micah bringing up the rear. The last thing I said to her before she got to the doorway was "Come on, Mom, I want to get in line!" Mom comes in, blows right by the giant banner with HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARGARET on it, says something like "Oh, look at all the balloons." Everyone yells SURPRISE and she still hasn't truly processed what was going on. You can almost hear the synapses firing in domino-like fashion. Since I was behind her I missed seeing her face as the lightbulb went off when she first took in everything.

There were old neighbors from when we lived in Hyattsville, there was her cousin from Florida, cousins from the Baltimore area, Aunt Mary, Donna and Bill from North Carolina, friends of hers who came all the way from Delaware, a friend whose mother worked with Mom's father, so many of her local friends this posting would go on forever it I tried to account for everyone. Even though I sent out the invitations, it was mind-blowing to see everyone there, so I know it was a huge surprise for Mom. Sometimes it doesn't take much to boggle her mind, and this did it and did it well. My brother did good, really, really big good.

Nothing like cake to cure a bad mood!

Meanwhile, it took most of the three-hour party for my stomach to completely unknot. When she turns 85, I'll pay for the party and my brother can concoct the stories needed to get her there.

Mom high-fiving it with the little cousins: Elise (2), Micah (3), Bailah (5) and Willi (3)

Evil Moments

Today we headed down the NJ Turnpike and on to my Mom's house. The kids were relatively good in the car, on minor spat with the obligatory whining, but otherwise a smooth trip. For variety we took a vote and decided to go through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel instead of taking I-695 and the Key Bridge. Thea thought the tunnel was pretty cool stuff. Score one for Mommy.

Since the kids only had one break at the Chesapeake House rest stop, the first order of business was getting some running around time in before dinner. And my mother's neighbor's dog is the perfect source of some exercise. Thea loves walking Chelsea (or being walked by Chelsea) because of the retractable leash. We start out by going up and down the fire lane exit to my mother's development so that Chelsea's done her business before walking through the neighborhood.

We also give Micah a chance to 'walk' Chelsea by putting him in the umbrella stroller and clipping the leash into the seat belt. Then Thea holds the back of the stroller so Chelsea (who is a Boston Terrier) doesn't take Micah on a wild ride. Though sometimes I think she loosens her grip on the handles to see what might happen.

OK, so that's the preamble and set up for the actual story. The three of us are heading back into my mother's little townhouse community with a dog that has done her business so thoroughly that there couldn't be a drop left in her if her bladder were wrung out like a sponge.

We start off down the little court, Micah and the stroller have the leash, I'm trying to keep Chelsea from running like a lunatic into the street because Micah has no grasp of how the retractable leash works. Pun intended. We pass a townhouse where a little Yorkie is at the storm door looking out, Chelsea spots her and makes a dash across the lawn to see the little yapping scrap of bad shag carpeting.

Then Yorkie owner comes to her door and tells us to keep 'our' dog off her lawn. With the little yapping provocateur right there. As I had just come from four hours in a car trying to keep two kids happy, I was not in the best of moods, so I just snapped and said, "Oh, get over it." Thea looked at the lady and said, "Yeah." And we kept walking.

Considering my employment history includes two years working in the NJ prison system "oh, get over it" is fairly tame. Nevertheless I immediately felt guilty because I don't want to cause problems for my mother.

After we finished the walk we returned Chelsea to her owner, and I had to ask her who lives at 203. And it turns out that the person I snapped out at is the neighborhood busybody who everyone in this little community despises for numerous and varied reasons. The infamous CeCe. I have hear so many CeCe stories, and I do remember a lady with a Yorkie stuffed under her arm barging in when Mom's neighbor was being treated by the paramedics and readied for transport to the local hospital. (Just what one wants is in the middle of a medical emergency to have someone come nosing around, and with her ratty little mutt, too.)

So after a brief discussion with Dorothy as to whether my mother has any inkling about her surprise birthday party (another vote for 'no'), I hightailed it back to Mom's to tell her about our encounter.

Needless to say, my stock in my mother's eyes rose and she was wishing she'd come out on the walk with us. . . .

And I'm glad we're at the hotel tonight. Mom's guest room faces the street, and I'd rather not be sleeping there when the Molotov cocktail a la CeCe gets lobbed through the window.

And while I'm on the subject of sharing what a horrible person I am, here's another foot-in-mouth-via-email moment:

The set up for this story is that Micah's ENT said last May that we would proceed with a CT scan after he turned three. Our only contact with him since that visit was via email to ask him for a letter supporting Micah's second BAHA (which he responded to in something under a nanosecond and had the letter sent out within a day or so of the request. He rocks.)

So I called the office on Wednesday to set the wheels in motion for the CT scan. And was told that we need to make an appointment for an office visit first. Whatever for? Until Dr. Choe has the CT scan results, another appointment is a waste of his time and ours. But I made an appointment anyway, and then emailed the doctor (who I was told was on vacation this week, but I figured it would be in his email in-box when he got back next week).

This is what I wrote:

"Thank you for your help with Micah's second BAHA; he is doing amazingly well and is now at Summit Speech School for its full-day preschool program for just under one month. I called the Englewood office today to ask about setting up the CT scan for Micah. The staff member I spoke with said that we would need to make an appointment first. I had been hoping that we could begin to make arrangements for the CT scan, and then follow up with you after you had had the opportunity to review the results. I attempted to explain that other than being a year older, a bit taller, a few pounds heavier and much more verbal, his atresia is unchanged. (She had asked,"How is Micah feeling?" which struck me as a slightly odd question; he's three years old, and blissfully unaware that he's any different than anyone else, atresia is his version of normal.)"

It's not all that bad,really, except that the doctor in his response to me saying we did not need to come in for an appointment until after the CT scan, also CC:'d the message to his medical assistant and asked her to pull Micah's chart and put it on his desk, with all of my entire message forwarded with his response. Ouch. The front desk staff is going to hate me, at least one of them is.

And he responded within a few hours of my sending the message to him. So much for his vacation, time to back away from the computer. Dr. Choe. . . . .

Weekend

We're heading down to Maryland again. My brother has arranged a surprise 80th birthday party for my mother (whose birthday is next Thursday). I got to help with the easy stuff: the invitations, making arrangements for flowers, paying for the cake, buying disposable cameras. I've been avoiding talking to my mother for about a month now - we're down to once a week from our usual three, sometimes four, times a week. I'm too afraid that I'll let something slip.

Micah's out of school today; Thea will be paroled at noon, if I've gotten packed up and the car is loaded. We have to come back Sunday night because both of them have appointments with Dr. Andy the dentist on Monday morning at 8:30 am, and if I cancel it's months for a double slot.

Not much to write about. . .

Boring weekend. Worked Saturday AM. Wrote my charts Saturday afternoon. Laundry, laundry and more laundry. Grocery shopping. The nice part, if there can be a nice part of working this weekend, is that I wasn't on call.

Thea brought home her report card on Friday. If the last one was fantastic, she's taken it to the next level - both with her grades and with working on the areas she needed to improve on (not getting frustrated when she raises her hand and is not called upon; waiting to hear the end of the question before trying to answer.) My fear was that by third grade, I would be too inept to help her with her homework. My new fear is that this will now happen by first grade.

Meanwhile, Thea actually finished her homework today, a new development since I've been finding it the morning it's due and she's been completing it before being taken to school. Bonus.

Meanwhile I did manage to get a few things around the house, and I took all the stuff that came out of the linen closet (and didn't go back in) to Goodwill. I'd love to have it all organized and sell it at the community yard sale in June, but I like just having it gone, gone, gone.

Next Micah's closet and all the babyish toys that no one has touched for eons. I'm doing a slow crawl through the house, heading for the garage.

On the down side, while I was driving home from work I found the coolest slant-top school desk put out on Nassau Street. It's heavy, and it had the original glass inkwell in it. The chair that accompanied it to the curb wasn't in as good shape - a bit crack in the seat that might not be fixable. I want to clean it up and either paint or refinish it for Thea and Micah to use. Junk goes out, junk comes in.

Half & Half

Today was a day off from work, but with my faithful sidekick home from school the chances of acccomplishing more than doing laundry and clearing the debris field he makes were pretty slim. So I decided to just enjoy the day rather than mentally inventory all the things around the house that I should be doing.

First we took Thea to school and stayed there for about an hour. Thea's English teacher is expecting a baby in May and, thanks to knowing a quilt-making genius who took my idea for a quilt with all the students' names and expanded on it (and made it both better and easier) who made 70 or so squares of fabric that were somehow stuck onto freezer paper and had an shape traced onto them for the signatures, we are now in the process of getting all the students and all the teachers to sign a block. The mission this morning was to get the upper grades and the kindergarteners out of the way. The preschoolers and pre-Ks at the other campus did there part earlier in the week, so now we're left with getting teachers and the few part-time children finished off before next weekend. I was really surprised at how neatly most of the children wrote - and Thea had to add her own spin on hers, using her full name instead of just a first name or first name and Chinese name.

Then Micah and I went into Princeton to the jeweler's. A pair of earrings my parents gave me the year my father died has a pearl that had somehow lost its nacre, so I wanted to see how much to replace it. Unfortunately today was the jeweler's day off so I just had to leave them there. Now I feel like part of my ears are missing, those earrings are just always on (which is probably how the pearl got worn in the first place.)

At the jeweler's we had one of those "can I ask you a question?" moments, after another customer waiting had stared at Micah's head for a good five minutes or more. Not my day for feeling like the goodwill ambassador for microtia and atresia.

So the inquisitive lady got what is now becoming my standardized schtick, on fast forward. Bone conduction hearing aids. Not deaf. No ear canals. Surgery at a later date, if possible. On fast forward because Micah had emptied half of the store's candy dish into his hands and onto the floor, so it was time to beat a hasty retreat to Panera's for a snack. And since Micah selected a table near where a psychology graduate student was working, we got to go through the whole routine again.

By then our 48 minutes of parking meter time (right in front of the jewelry store and one of my best parallel parking attempts in ages, one move and in it went, I must brag) was up so we took off for Marquand Park for some playtime in the sand pit.

Once were were home from our excursions, I made lunch and got Micah down for a nap. And instead of just hanging out or joining him for the hap, I decided to take on the linen closet. This storage space hasn't been overhauled since some time prior to Thea's adoption - easily five years of steady neglect and accumulation.

Post-purge we still have towels, wash cloths and linens beyond our needs. And it will probably be another five years before I feel inspired enough to do that again. Next, either Micah's closet or the cabinets below the bathroom sinks.

So the day was half productive, half fun - and better than I'd hoped for.

Weekend Shearing, Etc.

Both my little sheep got shorn this weekend. Yesterday Thea and I stopped in to see Miss Flo at Snip-Its and Thea got a major trim (she wanted it short), and today it was Micah's turn. Fortunately we arrived at Snip-Its during a lull, so it was just Micah in the chair. I need to remember 3-4-8 - that's the numbers of the blades on the razor for his buzz cutt, 3 for the side walls, 8 for the front and 4 for the back. Now the BAHA band doesn't push Micah's hair up so that he looks like he just stuck his finger in the electrical outlet.

Then we went off to do our grocery shopping, and surprisingly it went well enough considering that I usually go alone most Sundays. Thea gets bored, Micah wants every single damn Beanie Baby that those evil supermartket people put at the end of every other aisle. He only made a major plea once - for another Austin, Two Austins, Mommy? NO. I want Austin. Sorry, people in Hell want ice water. End of discussion.

Technical difficulties with the photo CD I made last weekend, so new photos are not happening this weekend. Something to work on Wednesday. I'm working a half-day tomorrow, then the usual Tuesday-Thursday. Last week's five days, even with half-days sucked the life out of me.

Wednesday was going to be my first day with both kids in school. Until I looked at the calendar and realized that Wednesday is the 18th, and Summit School is closed for an in-service day. So I'll have Micah for company all day. At least there will be a convenient excuse for not getting anything accomplished around the house.

Thea's Career Planning

While we were at Borders today, Thea was excited to find a knight story complete with a small action figure. "I want to be a knight when I grow up," she said.

I tried to explain that employment opportunities may be somewhat limited in an age without dragons to slay (though I'd be willing to let her substitute Rush Limbaugh, he's scary and scaly enough) or damsels in distress to rescue.

Her reply to this was, "Well, then I'll be a garbage collector."

Okay. Dream big, little darling.

Why a garbage collector? Not exactly a career path that comes up on the standard astronaut, ballerina, doctor, police officer, fireman early childhood career aspirations spectrum.

"Because they drive around in cool trucks."

Of course. The Waste Management truck that comes through our neighborhood is right up there with a Porsche or a Ferrari in my book, too. Not.