Today is my wife's birthday.
Last night the kids and I were making her a birthday cake. The history of my birthday cake making is disastrous. One year it was lime green, another it was lopsided, another I got sick and she had to make her own. This year, it came out almost perfect except I burned the edges a tad. Hid it with frosting, no one will ever know (-;
The kids decided to make her a pinata. They stuffed a paper bag (which they decorated) with mini candy canes and laffy taffy, sent from back home. The pinata was dangled from a string and during pouring rain we took bats at it.
WOW, it was surprisingly strong, and then, as we're hitting it I ask
"kids, what's in this?"
"mini candy canes and stuff"
so we were essentially making candy cane dust with our repeated whacks.
Finally Kendal went to town on it like Jack Nicholson on a windshield, and it fell apart.
Sure enough, little packets of pink dust fell from it and we laughed pretty hard.
During lunch I decided to get the kids to try and appreciate "mommy a bit".
"Close your eyes, spend 2 minutes thinking about what your life would be like without mommy."
-syd - "okay it.."
me- "ssh.. keep it to yourself (I didn't want to hear what they might say) and use it to appreciate mommy."
a few minutes later
calvin - "daddy can we share jsut 1?"
me - "okay, we're all listening."
calvin - "well all our food would be burnt."
sydney - "we would have to spend all our time with jsut you daddy."
at this kendal begins to laugh, and I can take the jibes... but for added measure sydney adds, mumbling under her breath and shaking he head, "that would be a miserable life."
Kendal lost it, nearly spit her drink through her nose.
Now I can take a jibe now and then, but that was jsut over the top. (-;
Tonight I cook her dinner, and we have some friends over for dessert.
Later in the month I hope to take her for a night into Goroka, a town about 2 hours away she hasn't visited yet. It is hard to get excited about it, but you take what you can get, and it's a time when she won't have to cook and will have some "jsut us" time. We're coupling the trip with picking up some friends on from their furlough.
All in all, birthdays are pretty mellow, and you take your fun where you can.
