Twenty-Something

Twenty-five to be exact. My birthday was last week on Sept. 1. Long story short, it started out ordinary, then got a little better, then turned to crap, then got better again. You can stop reading now if you are satisfied with that, but I want to document all that happened.

I woke up and went to work. Nothing work-related went any better or worse that usual - meetings, paperwork, report-writing, etc. Ordinary.

Brad called me at work to wish me a Happy Birthday, sweet, and some Facebook friends posted their happy birthday well-wishes on my Wall. Thanks everyone! A little better.

I went home and Connor did his usual drop whatever he was doing and run (walk) over to me for a hug and kisses. Love that. We played, ate lunch, and drove Ady to her apartment in Orange (her car broke so she was driving our truck, she got hers fixed, returned the truck and needed a ride home). Connor slept almost the whole 1.5 hour car ride, waking up only 10 minutes from home. (Side note: He's going through a phase right now that I don't think will pass any time soon- he doesn't like to be inside for any long length of time. He gets bored quickly and, consequently, becomes fussy and trouble-seeking.) So since he was awake, I decided to make a trip to Michaels to look for Young Women invitation supplies. Mistake #1.

I put him in his umbrella stroller, thinking that would keep him somewhat happy for a little while because he loves stroller rides. Wrong. As soon as I stopped to look at paper, he wanted out. Fine. There was nothing on that isle that he could really hurt or get into, so I turned him loose. In a new place he is good about staying next to me so he just played with the swinging metal price tags on the paper trays while I found the paper I needed. He followed me into the next isle where I was looking for brads and, wouldn't you know (although I'll never understand why), they put rows and rows of stickers and trinkets on the 0-2 ft level. Naturally he wanted to get into those so I held his hand and kept him just out of reach of the displayed items, knowing I didn't have much time until he would start protesting. Well, "not much time" was about 20 seconds. He started fussing, went boneless, and sat down on the floor. I, trying to be the I'm-not-going-to-put-up-with-this-behavior parent, let go of his hand and said (rather calmly), "Ok, you can sit on the floor and cry then," and walked 2 steps away. Well, if you remember this post from a couple weeks ago, you remember he can stand up on his own now. The first boneless tantrum was because he couldn't have what he wanted, but it didn't take him long (in fact only once) to figure out that if he went boneless and sat on the floor I would let go of his hand, which is what he wanted in the first place. I didn't realize what he was doing until he did it twice more - my kid is already smarter than me. So when he did it a fourth time, I tried to stand him back up with the hand I was holding but he wouldn't put his feet down. There was an older lady at the end of the aisle watching with amusement (she was quite literally laughing) as I held my 10-month-old suspended in air by the hand with his feet and legs held straight out in front of him saying, "Connor, stand up. Put your feet down, stand up." After 10 seconds of this, I just picked him up and held him - which he really didn't want. After being stiff-armed and screamed at, I determined it was a good time to leave. I hurried to the cash register, paid for the items I managed to pick up before all this started, and we left. This was the downhill turn in the day.

When we got home we started playing with some toys. I had just checked my email and set my laptop back down on the floor (Mistake #2). I walked over to his toy bin to get more of his toys out for him and he dashed behind me straight to the computer and knocked it over (we stand the laptop up on its side so it doesn't overheat). It killed the laptop. It froze and wouldn't restart, though I tried several times. I was sick the rest of the day thinking that I just lost all the pictures, videos, and journals from the last several months (fortunately we backed everything up on our external hard drive in April). And, on top of that, Connor was bored being inside so he was fussing and whining. I should have left the house again and went to a park or something, but I was just too tired by this point.

Brad had to work late that night so he got home right at 7 when it was time for me to leave for mutual. I remember saying something along the lines of "have fun with that" and walked out the door. Fortunately, mutual was a blast. My friend's husband is a lifeguard at the beach so he took all our young women on a tour of the Lifeguard Headquarters on the Hermosa Beach Pier. Very cool and interesting! We had fun talking to the lifeguards on duty, hearing all the stories, and seeing the trucks and gear they use to save people. Our refreshments that night were cupcakes (my favorite kind - fun-fetti cake mix with rainbow chip frosting!) made for me for my birthday by one of my young women. I love these girls! So the day was getting better. Then we walked back to my car to go home and there was a nice happy birthday present from the cops on my windshield - a parking ticket. Sigh. Happy freaking birthday (minus $50).

I dropped my girls off at their houses, and ended the night opening my presents from Brad. He got me a 16 GB camera card (so our card doesn't fill up so fast from all the video I shoot), another camera battery (because I'm always complaining that the only one we have dies when we are out and we can't charge it - it doesn't take regular batteries), and tickets to see Young Frankenstein at the OC Performing Arts Center in a couple weeks. At least the day ended on a very good note.

I just went to bed after that so nothing else could go wrong.

Thankfully, that day wasn't quite the disaster I thought it was since Brad has been able to get all the files off the computer, but now we're in the market for a $400-$500 laptop. That, plus the parking ticket, and all the presents Brad gave me made for one of the most expensive days we've had in a long time. Happy birthday to me...