I’m not sure what the exact definition of “middle aged” is, but I’m reasonably confident that at 40, Katie now qualifies.  If you don’t live nearby, you *might* have missed the fact that yesterday was Katie’s birthday.  If you were here, there’s no chance Katie would have let you forget it.  Katie loves her birthdays, and who are we to deprive her of this small pleasure?  And to be fair, Katie is kind of awesome, and most of the year it’s all about the boys, so I guess it’s fair for her to have her day.  We started a little bit early, with me giving her her first present the night before.  I figured her birthday would be a little too busy, so she might as well get some time to play.  And one very cool thing about having a kind of geeky wife is that she was actually happy when I bought her her very own, very first Lego set.

Malina helped the boys make their own wrapping paper.

We managed to rig our work schedules to have the day off, so we spent it exactly as you might expect – sleeping in, conning a barrista into a free chai tea, the Maltby Cafe for breakfast, followed by an allergy shot and shopping for carpet and linoleum.  Doesn’t is sound idylic?  Later we went over to Carter and Marilyn’s for spaetzle, presents, wine, and cake.  God, I love that cake…  It’s almost worth seeing my wife turn into a senior citizen to get a piece of that cake…  The boys volunteered to help blow out the candles, and lick the spoon.  And lick the plate.  And lick the cake.

And for some reason, this set Malina to dancing.  But what’s a birthday without a dancing Au Pair?

Come to think of it, that means we really need to get an Au Pair earlier in July, so that they’re here for my birthday on the 22nd…  We’d been thinking maybe we could manage to go another week or so later, but no dancing au pairs on my birthday?  FORGET IT.

It wasn’t exactly the birthday that dreams of made of.  Especially for Nicky, who skipped the whole nap thing, thus missing out on the dreams, and making Katie’s and my night a shade past miserable, but what can you do?  No, seriously, what can you do?  How can you get antibiotics into a kid who keeps yelling “There’s NO DEAL.  That’s NOT the deal.  I don’t like that idea.  Nobody’s listening to me!”

But we tried, and sometimes that’s all you can do.  We’ll try again tomorrow, when Katie’s invited about 14 times more people over than our house can possibly hold.  I’m assuming that we’ll start stacking guests like firewood before the evening is over.  We’ve spent the evening tonight re-arranging furniture to get ready, and since re-arranging furniture has become another of Katie’s guilty pleasures I think we’re on the right track.

Happy birthday, Katie.