Birthday

Christian took the day off to spend with me on my birthday. Caitlyn had a melt down in the morning over some absurd thing about her socks. Christian had to take her to school because she wouldn't get on the bus. We had a lazy morning after, trying to recover from the kids' nonsense.

We spent most of the day running errands together...mostly stuff for the kids. But also, my sewing machine died the previous week, so Christian and his dad decided to get me a new sewing machine for my birthday. He took me to JoAnn's to pick one out. The one I thought I wanted, didn't turn out to be so great so we took a while trying to figure out what to get. I finally settled on one, but it so happens that it was on back-order. So we purchased it but I am still waiting to receive it. It's fancier than I wanted but I'm excited about some of the new features now. We barely got home in time to pick up the kids from the bus stop. It was really nice spending some time with just Christian though.

Emily had a tantrum relating to having to do her homework. Meanwhile Christian was trying to make me a nice dinner in spite of it all. He bbq'd up some beef, made some fresh bread (naan, a really tasty flatbread) and smothered cabbage...yummy, even the kids ate it.

As we were trying to finish up for the night, the girls were fighting about wrapping little gifts for me...mostly because Emily did not listen to instructions her dad gave her (apparently 3 times) about what she was to do. So she thought she was being cheated and wanted to encroach upon Caitlyn's project. Caitlyn wanted to do hers a very specific way and didn't want her sister to mess it up.

Aaah, what a day. Happy Birthday to me...I'm beginning to dislike my birthday. Not only because I'm getting older (which doesn't help) but it is increasingly frustrating and just sets you up for disappointment. You never expect anything really special but you can't help but want to be a little selfish, to get just a little peace...a little thoughtfulness from the kids. But apparently it is too much to ask.

At the end of the week, Christian's dad drove up with Mark and Danielle for my birthday. We decided on a simple menu so that we don't stress ourselves out too much. As part of my present, Emily wanted to make eclairs for me with her dad. There was still a lot going on. We were trying to tidy the place up a bit. Emily was pestering her dad. I wanted to clean the bathrooms a bit. The bathroom sinks (which are kind of connected through the wall since our bathrooms sit back to back) were draining a little slowly which was worrying us but we did not have time to look into it yet. It decided to stop draining as soon as I started scrubbing. Christian was in the middle of making the eclairs but we decided that having working sinks was far more important than the eclairs and went to go fix it. Evidently, an ingredient was left out of the eclair dough. I tried to pick up where he left off and finish it but it did not look right. Anyway, I piped them out and baked them but they did not rise. They were like dense little cookies.

Luckily, Christian was able to clean out the "clean out" for the sinks and get them working just as our guests arrived. We tried to salvage the afternoon and forget about all our frustrations. We had a nice lunch (no dessert...which is probably just as well since we were all stuffed) and relaxed with a movie afterwards.

So, that was my eventful, somewhat stressful birthday celebration.

A couple of days later (since it was bugging me), I figured out what the missing ingredient was (water) in the eclair dough and decided to make it again myself. It turned out this time. It was tasty and we ate too many. We were going to bring some over to a friend's house but it was kind of late so we just ended up sharing with our neighbor and ate the rest. I better start exercising again...it's been a while!