Nope, this isn’t the big 30 for Joel, rather it’s the big 31.  Last year, I took Joel camping on his birthday, and his birthday kind of got lost in the bustle.  He stills complains about that to this day.  This year, I tried the traditional method.  I arranged for a babysitter (my parents), I got reservations at an Italian restaurant (Lombardi’s), got Malina and the boys to make a birthday cake (Malina volunteered – I didn’t have to con her into it), and I even managed to get a few presents for Joel (even if he was the one who picked them out and ordered them on the internet for me).  Ok, so, not so traditional but it actually worked.

Wednesday night, Malina, Dexter, Nicholas and I went to the mall to go shopping for birthday cards and run off some energy (Katie, Nic & Dex) and buy a swim suit (Malina – any excuse to go shopping, although definitely not as bad as Malin).  I had about 5 seconds to pick out a card before going back to boy wrangling.  Then the boys and I played in the kid area where we were adopted by a very lonely little 5 year old girl, before heading off to the little $1 carousel and Borders book store.  It was at Borders that we picked out two airplanes to buy Daddy with the condition that these toys were birthday presents for Daddy, not for Nicholas and Dexter.  I had to repeat this message at least 4 times before it stuck.  Malina found us reading all the new Lightning Mcqueen stories.  It was hard to drag us away.  Of course, when we finally arrived back home and told the boys, “you need to hide the airplanes from Daddy” (yes, I knew that this was not going to work but I wanted to see how badly it would go wrong), Dexter promptly ran into the kitchen to show daddy his new airplane, and then remembered to hide it and hid his airplane under the kitchen table and told Joel where it was.  I think Nicky showed his to Joel before hiding his under the kitchen table too.  Joel took pleasure in asking for his presents and the boys saying “ok”.

As for his birthday, Joel received many “happy birthday” messages and phone calls from family and friends.  He got to sleep in.  He was treated to a lovely dinner with his wife (me!) while Grandma and Grandpa French dealt with a rather mischievous Nicholas and a very pleasant Dexter.  Apparently, Nicholas discovered how to shoot out ice and water from my parents’ refrigerator and he managed to do it more than once.  My dad also told me that Nicky dumped a few Legos into the toilet, which he has never done before.  Malina joined us all for the cake that she and the boys made and we watched how full Nicholas’s mouth became as he shoved more and more cake into it.  Then the boys “helped” their father open his presents.  More like Joel was lucky if he got to hold one before the boys ripped it open

In all, it was a very pleasant day and one I think Joel enjoyed, even if Malina made fun of him zooming his new airplanes around the house after the boys had gone down to bed.

Sorry – there were so many cute moments but I forgot to bring a camera.

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