This week was actually way more interesting than it looks in iPhone photos. I just spent nearly all my free minutes with my headphones plugged into my phone listening to podcasts while I tried to get the disaster that is my house under control. I’m happy to report about a 50% improvement. It would be closer to 100 if there weren’t two small people who make more messes literally SECONDS after I clean them up.

Sunday:

I promise we did lots of things, but the only picture I have is the gingers helping me pick fabric at Joann’s.

Monday:

Princesses love iPads

Princesses also love paint dots

Tuesday:

Morning person

Practicing his long jump

Hugging her dog-brother

Wednesday:

This might not impress you, but that’s 50 cents less than the actual price, thanks to Stop & Shop points.

If they made the salted caramel kind I would be the happiest person EVER.

Mystic

Thursday:

This girl loves school, except for the days she doesn’t, in which case OMG THE SCREAMING.

Waiting very patiently for her brother.

Friday:

Princesses want their quesadilla RIGHT NOW.

I’m trying to decide if this stuff will look ridiculous in our slightly-smaller-scale dollhouse

Saturday:

THE EXTRA COUCH IS GONE AND MY LIVING ROOM LOOKS LIKE A LIVING ROOM!!

Finally started decorating – one week to go!

This week I am going to finish 90% of my Christmas shopping, bake a zillion things, decorate for Caroline’s birthday AND Christmas, have a coffee date with a friend, clean the house for my parents and my in-laws (yaaaaaaah!) and possibly dye my hair rose gold.

Today Evan’s school is canceled so we have the morning to decorate the Christmas tree the kids and I chopped down and brought home and got in the house ALL OUR OWN SELVES. Or really, my own self. The kids weren’t very good with the hand saw.

I can’t even believe Easter was only a week ago. Longest week ever? Possibly. Another super long week starting tomorrow? Yep.

Sunday:

The Easter Bunny came!!!!

Walking to church

Model train building with Daddy

There’s a child eating a red velvet cupcake under all that hair somewhere.

Monday:

Plaaaaaaaaydate

THE GREEN ONE! I WANT THE GREEN ONE!

Facetiming with Daddy

Tuesday:

Tour of the charter pre-school includes this view

Dear pregnant relatives: Surprise! This is what you’re getting at your baby showers. What do you want the author to write in it?

Discussing the advantages of pressure treated vs. non-pressure treated wood.

Wednesday:

Successful forward roll…five seconds ago.

Library book reading to MorMor

Book reading with Bumpa. So many books!

Thursday:

Yard work! When my parents come to visit we (er, they) get so much done.

That is called a frog fish. Now you know.

Hello fish.

Friday:

Special Helper Birthday Ribbon at school!!!! So exciting!!!

Frickin mice chewed a frickin hole in the bottom of my dishwasher. GOOD TIMES.

Busy, busy, busy girl is tired.

Saturday:

Birthday time!!!!

Happy Birthday Evan!!!!!!

Friends 4 Life – or at least for 90% of Evan’s life so far.

And now I am going to collapse, just like my kids did 30 seconds after I tucked them in.

I read a post on BlogHer last week about a mom who has no interest in throwing her kid a Pinterest-style birthday party. I’m not going to link to it directly since I’m not trying to criticize or start a fight with the author. You can easily find it if you want to read the original but the gist was this: “We do low-key parties. I sent some email invites and invited 2 friends and my kid had a super good time…” The part that came after those ellipses was unspoken by the author but was obvious in the comment section. It ranged from “…so planning a big, extravagant party is stupid” to “…so your way is a waste of time” to “…which makes me a better mom because I spent more time with my kid than you did because you were on Pinterest looking for ways to make cupcakes in a mason jar.”

WHOA WHOA WHOA. While I can agree with the premise of the original post (You don’t NEED matching place settings to have a nice birthday! Kids don’t really care!) I would like to register my extreme disagreement with the idea that throwing a Pinterest-inspired kid’s birthday party makes me anything except for someone who likes throwing parties.

I am not a better mom. I am not a worse mom. I am not a busier mom. I am not a slacker mom. I am not a more involved mom. I am not a mom who never plays on the floor with her kids. I am not interested in comparing my kid’s birthday party to your kid’s birthday party. YOU DO YOU. I am just doing something that makes me and my kid happy.

What’s that you say? This sounds just like everything else about parenting? Why yes, I believe you’re correct! Breastfeeding, bottle feeding, make your own baby food, baby-led weaning, cloth diapers, disposable diapers, organic sawdust filled diapers, daycare, preschool, homeschool, unschool, upside-down school, WHATEVER. The effort/non-effort you are willing to put into any of those things doesn’t have anything to do with me. Stop making it a comparison. If you hate it, don’t do it!

I swear to you – double-dog, pinkie-swear, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-stick-a-thumbtack-in-my-eye swear – that when I bring my kid to your kid’s birthday party at Chuck E Cheese the ONLY thing I am thinking is “Hmmm…Will anyone notice if I eat 4 pieces of pizza?” I am grateful we were invited because it means my kid isn’t a total jerk. I am glad to be out of the house. I am EXTRA glad if there is store-bought cake, since we all know that’s really the best kind. I’ve been to birthdays ranging from 3 kids just hanging out to 30 kids and a bounce house and my kid had fun at all of them.

When I started this big, fancy birthday party thing for Evan’s 1st there WAS no Pinterest. It was the Stone Ages of party planning, where I had to rely on Google Image Search and my own brain. I didn’t even know about paper straws. But I started the planning ball rolling and it just…kept going. I liked it. It was fun, it kept me busy, it was a creative outlet I had been missing during that first hectic new-baby year. Evan REALLY enjoyed his birthday and I enjoyed the compliments. Now it’s become my Thing – birthdays, baby showers, Halloween, whatever – and I’m going to keep doing it as long as the kids are still excited about it. Although one day I’m sure we’ll do Chuck E Cheese – and this year we’re doing a store-bought cake too.

Whew. That was 400 words more than I was planning on writing and probably 600 words more than I actually needed.

TL:DR version – Parties are cool, do whatever you want.

If what you want is a vintage train themed party with an orange and blue color scheme, here’s what I’m planning for Evan’s 4th. I’ve bought about 75% of this already and I’m making/hunting down/crowd-sourcing the rest.

Apologies for that title, I couldn’t help myself. Our friend Amelia turned four last week and her mom scheduled a party at Mystic Aquarium to celebrate. It turns out letting someone else do alllll the party work is kind of amazing. Especially when they also provide pizza and cake and live horseshoe crabs for the kids to play with. There was also a puppet show. Basically, I’m one thousand percent impressed and questioning everything about my current children’s-birthday-status-quo. You just set up the whole thing over the internet and someone else cleans up. 

A small fraction of the bazillion photos:

Today is my husband E’s 33rd birthday. To celebrate, he is going to work for 18 hours. Because of the storm I didn’t get to the grocery store for ingredients to make his favorite carrot cake. The kids and I didn’t get any We Love Daddy crafts done. Basically, he’s going to have the worst birthday ever (except for that one he spent in Boot Camp, I hear it was pretty lousy). I don’t think E is too upset with me though – he wasn’t very excited about turning 33. It’s sort of an in-between age – too young to buy a convertible and call it a mid-life crisis and too old to get good and drunk and whine about how old you are.

But it still sucks not to get to do something special on your birthday, so the kids and I are going to work on it. In the mean time, please enjoy photos of  the 6th worst storm in recorded New England history:

Another 3 inches and it would have been over the snowblower

She only lasted 2 minutes before she fell in a drift and told me she was ALL DONE

This is my cat, she’s cute  (and a little gingery) too

Happy Birthday Daddy!