Party Planner

One month ago, Ada's birthday party was easy: she'd have an exact replica of her older sister's fifth birthday party. Oops: our favorite clown is in Hawaii this week. But that's OK, she had another idea, anyway. "I want an Alton Brown party!" Oops: this TV celebrity doesn't know you as well as you know him. But two weeks ago, Ada's birthday party was still easy: we'd go to Whole Foods for one of their cooking parties and I wouldn't even have to clean my house. Oops: Whole Foods had a massive kids' event last Saturday and no birthday parties were held all weekend. This is when things got a little complicated.

Alton Brown hosts a science-themed cooking show on The Food Network called Good Eats. He's also the host/food historian/scientist/commentator for Iron Chef America, but Ada doesn't watch that show. (Good Eats is a show we occasionally watch together while I nurse her baby brother.) It turns out that not only does Alton Brown not regularly perform at children's birthday parties halfway across the country, but also he's not a popular children's party theme. There are no canned party-in-a-box options to purchase. There aren't even Alton Brown-themed party hats. What to do? Here's Ada's 5th Birthday Alton Brown Party, for your amusement.

We decided on a Saturday morning party from 9-11, at which guests could wear pajamas (so that Ada could wear her favorite footie pjs). First came the homemade invitations (since I couldn't exactly order Good Eats invites):


Could you tell that's supposed to be an egg with bacon?

Ada was turning 5, so allowed 5 guests plus herself and her sister (4 guests came, for a total of 6 little girls). As they arrived, we greeted them with homemade name tags so that all the adults would know the children's names - the girls are now old enough that not all the parents needed to stay! A first. The girls went into the dining room and began decorating colorful aprons that would also serve as party favors.


When they'd finished their aprons they washed hands and divided themselves into two groups (by the color of their nametags). The Red Team stood on stools at the kitchen counter with Paul, making vanilla cupcakes. The Purple Team sat at the dining room table with me, making monkey bread.


As the projects baked, Ada opened her presents. Then all the girls sat in the family room to watch me standing behind the kitchen counter making a fool of myself demonstrating yeast and gluten while baking bread. (Thanks to Kristy for taking pictures. Thanks to my sister-in-law for the loaner lab coat and glasses!)



We secretly had three loaves of bread going so that the girls could see the mixing/kneading stage, the risen stage, and the baked stage in short order. After scraping dough from their hands, the girls divided back into their baking teams. The purple team decorated freshly baked cupcakes at the kitchen table while the red team made fruit kabobs in the dining room. The teams then switched stations, and when everyone was done the kids sat down together to eat at the dining room table.



Between activities there was time for free play in Ada and Ellie's room or taking turns flying Paul's remote controlled helicopter. I think it all went remarkably well! THANKS to Paul for co-leading and for making so many of my ideas come to life (including the cupcake toppers and laundry basket of gluten). Many, many thanks to my parents for making the 300 mile drives (separately!) through ice and white-out conditions to be here and to take care of Teddy during the party.



Today was Ada's birthday proper and she got to pick all the food: doughnuts for breakfast, mac and cheese for lunch, and tacos with re-fried beans for supper. Then more presents and it's all over for another 364 days! (Here she's opening a cookbook from her sister.)

Merry Christmas

(Wash U Class of 1997 friends note the sweatshirts. Hope to see you at Reunion 2012!)

Thanksgiving 2011

Table for 10:


Child #2 vs. Thanksgiving dinner - dinner wins!


Child #3 vs. Thanksgiving dinner - child wins! If I hadn't taken Teddy to bed, I'm relatively certain he'd still be eating. The big hits: TURKEY, mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

Disneyland 2011: Privations and Pratfalls

We had a wonderful, fabulous time at Disneyland. And I'll write a more detailed trip report than anyone wants to read. But our misadventures make a funnier tale.

T-3: One child develops a fever.

T-2: Paul gets called out of town on a last minute business trip right before our vacation. By leaving his meeting early he can get home at 11:00 PM the night before our trip. We leave the house at 4:30 the next morning. Yes, 5 hours after he returns home. This sucks because, a) he's exhausted, and b) I need to do a great deal of the packing and preparing by myself with the "assistance" of three small children.

T-1: I try on the custom-designed shirt we've ordered for each of us (yes, we are a family who matches clothes each day at Disney. why not?) only to find that - lo and behold - it's shrunk at least two sizes after its custom dye job. Everyone else's white shirt is fine, but mine is thin, skin-tight, and the Mickey ears form an unfortunate ring-around-the-breasts design. So . . . I drag two children - one still with fever - out to shop for another shirt to go under the disaster shirt, figuring that if I layer 3 shirts together I can make myself into a featureless sausage casing, in this case a preferable alternative. (It works, more or less.)


Trip Day 1: "Ma'am, that beeping sound means that you've been randomly selected for additional screening." I pride myself on making it through security without slowing down the line at all, no matter how many electronic devices or small children might be in my party. Today is no exception, except that Teddy and I are "randomly selected for additional screening" on this trip - in both directions! The helpful TSA lady brings me my bin after my infant and I are cleared . . . and somehow I become permanently separated from my clear plastic baggie of lotions, medical ointments, sunscreens, etc. I don't realize the oversight until we're in the air.

Trip Day 2: Safe! While waiting in line for a map I notice Paul and the children greeting Mickey Mouse. Hooray! I skip the line and sprint across rain-splattered asphalt to rejoin my family for photographs. Oops! Slick spot. I slide LOUDLY into a metal trashcan as though I'm stealing home. Over a week later, my knee still hurts a bit. My pride has recovered somewhat.


Trip Day 3: Please don't call child protective services. Ada's on-again/off-again fever strikes and she falls asleep in the stroller. Ellie really wants to paddle canoes.(Did you know that you can do this at Disneyland? Win!) So I find a shady spot alongside a wall, Paul parks the stroller with Ada inside it, and I hop up on the wall and cover up modestly to feed the baby and let him nap on my lap. After a quiet, relaxing interval, Paul and Ellie return. Paul brushes past the stroller, whose brakes are apparently not engaged, and . . . the stroller rolls across the slanted walk and crashes into the landscaping 10 feet away. Ada (not seat-belted) tumbles out into a bush, wakes abruptly, and begins crying. We discuss the episode later that afternoon. She thinks I'm kidding and has no memory of the fall whatsoever. Whew. "That would be scary," she says.


Trip Day 4: We wake early. Eat granola bars in our hotel room and pack without incident. We check out well ahead of schedule and try (for the second time this trip) to find our way to the beach with GPS or a detailed map. (Head west! Water must be here somewhere!) We travel on deserted highways and stumble upon a Starbucks immediately before finding beautiful, deserted Newport Beach. We watch the sun rise over the water for a bit, then head to the airport. We return the rental minivan, navigate security, and arrive at our gate, still ahead of schedule. Nothing goes wrong! Uneventful trip and a perfect travel day. The only weirdness is that somehow we watched sunrise over the ocean in California.

An Angel, a Cowgirl, and a Mummy

An Angel, a Cowgirl, and a Mummy sit down on a swing . . .

Sounds like the beginning of a joke but it's the end of tonight's trick-or-treating. (The angel is my niece, Abby, age 4. Ellie and Ada are 8 and 4-1/2.)



Trick-or-treating followed a dinner of mummy dogs, grilled cheese jack-o'-lanterns, spooooky spinach soufflé, Halloween salad (including carrots, black beans, and toasted pumpkin seeds), and deviled eggs (some were "tricked" out with cayenne pepper on top).


Not pictured: one 7-month-old sea turtle who went to bed before dinnertime.


On to November -

Good luck to all my writer friends beginning work on National Novel Writing Month!

(Carbon) Dating Myself

This afternoon, 4-year-old Ada and I sat on our front porch swing waiting for Ellie's bus as I pushed us gently back-and-forth and we discussed the relative merits of Swedish Fish vs. Sour Patch Kids.

Then Ada started quizzing me. First she spelled the names of each of my three children, checking to see if I could identify each one. Then she moved on to Biology.

"First, after the dinosaurs, a monkey had a baby and it was a human and it was you, Mommy!"

Sounds about right.

Unconnected Thoughts

Anecdote the first:

Ada and I are home together working on math: number recognition, what-comes-next, greater than/less than. Also on tonight's lesson plan: turn taking and good sportsmanship.

We're watching Big Ten Volleyball.

Anecdote the second:

I'd forgotten a few things about exercise. For example, I'd forgotten how much I hurt all over for the next couple of days after a good workout. Also, related to the first thing I'd forgotten: to stretch afterwards.

Connective Tissue:

None. My brain seems to be working in these little bite-sized nuggets lately, which is why I'm doing a lot more Facebook status updates than blog posts.

Stay...cation

Glorious world, fall weather is here! Now I'm waiting for the return of the pumpkin spice latte and my joy will be complete. Especially because I just found the Starbucks gift card my in-laws gave me for Christmas. It was tucked inside the wrapper of some new SmartWool socks that I haven't needed for several months.

"Mommy, remember when we went to Wyoming? And Indiana? And to the cabin? And stayed at home?"

This is Ellie, recapping our summer vacations. I had a great time visiting my parents and Paul's, at a family reunion in Brown County, Indiana, in Chicago, and indeed all summer long. But this weekend might have been the best vacation of all, not least because I got to shower in my own shower and sleep in my own bed. It's a blast being a tourist in my own town.

Festivities started on Thursday evening when the girls got haircuts at The Hairy Elephant. This is a real treat. The waiting room is filled with cool toys and books. They get to select their own flavored shampoos from colorful pump bottles. Then they lie on a bench while the stylist washes their hair with a long, gray trunk attached to an elephant head on the wall. How cool is this? With clean, wet hair the girls select a video and a seat. This week Ada chose Lightening McQueen and Ellie a white golf cart. The stylists - experts with kids including children with special needs - make the cut fun and follow it up by allowing the girls to choose plastic clips for their hair, then stickers and suckers. We picked up cupcakes for dessert on the way home.

Friday morning Teddy and I went to our weekly play group while Paul and the girls went on their first horseback trail ride. Ellie got to ride all by herself! Ada decided that instead of gymnastics she'd rather take riding lessons this fall. (Nope, sorry.) We met for lunch afterward then had a quiet afternoon and evening at home (Friday night pizza and a movie).

Saturday morning, one of hottest days of the summer so far, we went to Six Flags. We rode the Ferris wheel as a warm up, then the girls begged to be allowed to go on what looks to me like the most terrifying ride in the park (Pandemonium) a roller coaster that spins in 360's as it moves along the tracks. It was, apparently, fun, though Ellie does not want to repeat the experience. It was so very hot. After lunch we discovered the water rides, and much fun was had by all.


Sunday was all about the bikes. The girls and Paul rode our tandem trail-a-bike to church - I'm told this is very hard work for the lead biker - and they loved doing that. After Teddy's nap we drove downtown to the Gateway Arch and did the most touristy activities imaginable: quadracycle and carriage rides. Then spaghetti, Ted Drewes, and home.


Today was a BBQ at home with family and then one last trip to the pool for the season. Perfect weekend.

Since he comes everywhere with me, I should mention my third child. Teddy was a great sport being carted hither and yon and stuck outside in ridiculously hot weather. But he exacted his revenge in the middle of the night by not sleeping much this weekend.

Bring on Tuesday!

July

Now that we've got temperatures over 100 degrees, again, I figure it's time to give a photo review of our July.

Cooling off in Lake Michigan, at my parents' house, and at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago:
(Teddy was only 3 months old!)

Nature drives (rather than walks, this summer):


Swimming lessons, slip 'n' slide, park:


And a baptism, but that deserves a post of its own.

I've had babies in the winter, before, and have felt a little trapped in my house by the weather. Having this baby in the spring would have been perfect except for the fact that this summer was hot and we spent a fair amount of time trapped inside the house by the weather! I'm not complaining too much, though. After all, it's September, glorious September, and crisp fall weather is right around the corner.

First Days

Last week saw Ellie's first day of second grade (second grade!) and Ada's first day of Pre-K. Wow. People aren't kidding when they say that "it goes by so fast." I think childhood is like a glacier. At first there's so little perspective that you barely feel like you're moving and then, all of a sudden, your child is counting the moments until she's old enough to sit in the front seat (age 12 - Ellie knows she has just over 4 years to go) and talking about going away to college. Zoom, momentum.



Oh, also, another first last week:


(Other quick Teddy notes for my later reference: size 2 diapers, blowing lots of raspberries, and rolling over onto his tummy in the middle of the night, getting stuck, and furiously screaming for help. Hilarious. Three bouts this summer of clogged duct with pain and fever: less funny.)