Back with a four-year-old!

I guess it's time to get back here! I didn't do any of the things I'd planned on doing when I took a break, but I did manage to get the boys back to school (filled out a million forms), and am getting organized (more on that later).
I did not fish. But I did see "Star Wars" for the first time.
The big event, however, was this past weekend: Harry turned four!


We had a nice party for him, with family & friends, and it was an excellent day. I told the guests that the party would start at 2:00. My usual drill is that I get everything ready but myself, and then I scramble to get ready and the doorbell is ringing while I'm still putting on make-up. This time, I was dressed and sitting in a chair quietly at 2:00. By 2:12 I was muttering, "Where the hell is everyone?" and then I theorized (based on nothing) that the crowd that arrives late will be ready to party. This proved true.
We had Champagne, wine, chicken salad, roast beef, and turkey wraps. A huge salad with lettuces, Brie, rolled-up strips of ham, grapes, apples, walnuts, & edamame. Chips, Fritos, pita triangles with hummous. And cake! Harry had requested a blue cake, and so that is what he got. It was really good.

After eight years of birthday parties, I've finally figured out that there are really only two key things you need for a good party: cake and balloons.


That's it. Everything else is a bonus. Well, maybe wine for the grown-ups is a necessity.

Look at Lucky mingling with the guests; it looks like someone told a good joke.
We said our final good-byes at 8:30, and then dropped off, one by one.
Since Harry's actual birthday was on Sunday, I made him another cake, which was disappointingly filled with fresh apples and (more importantly) not blue. The boys weren't impressed. The entire time I was making the cake, Harry was harassing me from underneath the kitchen table, repeating, "Mom, make another blue cake. Mom, make another blue cake. Mom, are you making another blue cake?" It made Troy and me wonder if maybe we should administer birthday spankings with a wooden spoon.
When it came time to blow out the candles, Harry was taking forever and threatening to spray spit all over the cake,

so Troy jumped in and blew out the candles in what I can only guess was a fit of OCD spontaneity.

I then sliced the cake and re-lit the four candles on Harry's piece so he could try again to make a wish. And he did.
Probably: I wish I don't have to go to school in the morning.