On Birthday's, Pokemon, and Kip's chocolate chip cookies

Today Mark turned eight. Eight is one of the "big" birthdays and one in which I'll let my kids have a big party. But Mark didn't want a big party. What he did want was for his best friend for super ever, Peter, to come to our house from 10am to 10pm, which is what we did give or take an hour or so. Did Mark want a cake--a beautiful layer cake from his mother, the cake queen (don't worry, I gave myself that title--you don't have to use it) who loves making cakes and layering them and frosting them and layering them some more. No, Mark wanted cookies like last year. And he didn't even want me to make them. He wanted Kip to make Kip's chocolate chip cookies (stay posted and I'll include the recipe in a later post, although clearly no one makes them quite as well as Kip). As for a gift, did Mark want Transformers, Legos, cars? No, Mark wanted Pokemon cards and that's it--as many Pokemon cards as the birthday budget would allow and that's all.

Under the circumstances his birthday should have been easy--no party, one friend, a treat I didn't have to make, and one gift from one shelf at Target. And don't get me wrong, it wasn't the hardest day of my life or anything, but I stressed about which Pokemon cards to get, since the whole idea of Pokemon cards being so fun is a bit baffling to me. And then, Kip was sleeping this morning, so the cookies didn't even get going until after Peter's soccer game and by then our day (meaning the time before Kip had to go to work and I had to go to the women's broadcast) was getting a bit short. Kip made cookies while I took the big kids to Target to buy (you guessed it) more Pokemon cards because that's what Mark wanted to do with his birthday money (thanks Kent and Jeanie and Katie), and also ice cream (which I managed to forget when shopping the day before) and bread (which I managed not to notice we were out of). Then we came home and had Mark's dinner choice--spaghetti with plain sauce (again, not too difficult here) and we stuck a candle in a cookie and sang the birthday song. And then I threw some dishes in the dishwasher before the babysitter came and I left. Seriously, people, my feet were aching.

And do I, for all this effort, have a single birthday photo? Well, technically, yes. Several in fact. Unfortunately, they are stored within our camera. And our camera thinks I'm an idiot. In fact, I can see the camera from here--taunting me, "I bet you can't remember how to take the one thingy out and put it in that one other thingy on that one part of the computer somewhere, can you?" "No," I must reply, "I cannot, and must, therefore wait until Kip gets home and shows me yet again, how to do such a technologically advanced procedure." (And how did I make it through college, you might be asking. Well, if I'd gone five years later than I did, I just might not have. Hi, floppy disks from college that I still have. Aren't you glad someone still knows how to use you, though I'm not sure our current computer is one of them.) Anyway, I'll try to get some pictures on tomorrow.

In other news--the food before the broadcast was so great--if anyone who reads this made any--yum thank you. And the broadcast was great too. And Emma was great. And Ronnie was great for watching her while I ate. And Sally was great for doing all that work without my help. And Cara was great for driving. But greatest of all was young Ella--my babysitter. I expected to come home from the broadcast to a poopy diaper (Emma managed to poop and I managed not to have a single diaper in my diaper bag--go me) attached to a baby who desperately needed to nurse and go to sleep, four kids awake and exhausted who would need to brush teeth and have a story at the same time I needed to be nursing my baby to sleep, and a very messy house (which is certainly how I left it). Instead I came home to find my two girls asleep and the house perfectly clean. Seriously, I was like, "My kitchen; I can see it." It was amazing. I put Emma to bed and kissed Mark good-night. And then I just about didn't know what to do with myself; I was so braced for an exhausting night. If anyone needs an awesome babysitter, you should give her a call.

Happy birthday, Mark! We love you.