Yesterday was my birthday!
Number 41. I know, try to stifle the yawn. 41 is so...anticlimactic after the big 4-0!
It's a celebration, don't get me wrong...it's just not a CELEBRATION!!!!
It was a great, low, key, stay in your pajamas until 4pm and clean the kitchen from top to bottom kind of day. I got lovely cards from Marc and the kids, and the only present I asked for, which was a biggie! A weekend with Molly and Maeve back in Massachusetts! Our flight leaves Friday and we are pumped! Well, except for the little problem of Maeve cutting her top two teeth...and NOT gracefully, like she did her bottoms. It's been U-G-L-Y around here. I got 4 hours of broken sleep last night and had to fire up the swing for the first time in two months.
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| These pumpkins depict how my brain feels after too many sleepless nights! |
But besides that part, the day was sweet and spent with my favorite people. Giving Maeve an extra-long bath...playing puppets with Ben (we were dinosaurs playing catch with the head of a Power Rangers Megazord - it was hilarious!)...helping Molly do math homework (elapsed time is a killer!)...discussing our house tech rules with Jack ad nauseum (a daily ritual for him).
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| Case in Point, somebody smuggled his iPod because he just. can't. put. it. DOWN. |
The one thing I wanted to do, which I knew had to be broad and flexible lest it not happen at all, was to "get out in nature". At first, I'd hoped we could get to the Arboretum....but that didn't happen. Then I thought maybe we'd go to the pumpkin farm. But we were too lazy and preoccupied. So as a last ditch effort to make something happen, we ran up to the farmstand at the edge of our neighborhood to buy Maeve's first pumpkin - which was exactly how I spent my 30th birthday too, only it was baby Jack's first pumpkin!
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| Here she is making her selection. She wanted to be one with the pumpkin, so she dressed the part! |
Out here in Chicagoland, everything is done BIG. There isn't just a pumpkin patch. There's a pumpkin EXTRAVEGANZA everywhere you turn. With corn mazes, and hayrides, pony rides and camel rides, puppet shows and climbing walls, petting zoos and train rides, giant slides and pumpkin trebuchets, haunted houses and fun houses, face painting and pig racing, gift shops and photo ops...
Oh, and they sell pumpkins too.
It is all TOO MUCH! We just needed a few good pumpkins.
The key to stress-free pumpkin picking I realize now (after a few years of doing it the other way) is to keep expectations LOW and choices LIMITED. This is an automatic side benefit to showing up at a local farmstand ten minutes before the place closes, which is exactly what we did!
11 days before Halloween, there wasn't much left to choose from, so choices were made expeditiously!
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| one....two...three...four! |
And everyone felt pretty happy with their choices, instead of running around a 200 acre mega-farm like crazy people trying not to miss anything.
Okay, maybe Ben and Jack were a little tired of taking pictures...
But Maeve and I had a lovely time, especially for two people high on endorphins from not sleeping.
A perfect birthday. Just like the one 11 years before...
Bookends.
2 comments:
Beautiful!! :)
Really amazing! I had to do a double-take to see if Maeve was wearing Jack's hat... and really impressive given the lack of sleep you both had! The kids are getting so big - glad you threw some of all 4 in there! For the record, 42 is rather chill, too. Calm chill. Accepting chill. At peace chill. You'll dig it.
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