She helped me wrap the presents, where the wrapping was fortunately done as gift bags and not wrapping paper. I say "fortunately" because we didn't have any tape... and we didn't have any tape because days before the kids had used it to tape the steps on the playset together, or whatever purpose the tape was to have served. I laid into her a little bit about this and what a waste it was and then moved on. We had things to do.
We had five items to put into two bags -- Ella wrapped three of them in tissue paper and put them into the smaller bag, and I wrapped two of them and put them into the bigger bag. And we both added some tissue paper to the tops of each bag, attempting to mae them look a little prettier.
She had just finished asking me if she could write "Happy Birthday" for the last time when she finally heard that it was a baby shower we'd be going to.
"Are we going to go in the baby shower?" she asked.
"No, you don't go in to a baby shower," I told her. "You go to a baby shower."
She was confused. "Do we go into the bathroom and in the baby shower," she asked again.
And I proceeded to tell her again that it wasn't that kind of shower, that Aunt Ellen was having a baby and we were going to her baby shower to celebrate that. I even told her that we'd be showering her with gifts and stopped going down that path about as quickly as I had gotten on it. To stay on that path was asking for a lot of questions and pain for no gain -- to Ella, to "shower" is to get wet and clean, nothing else.
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| Mini Me and Me before the shower |
Ella chose her black and white chevron striped tank dress with a hot pink tutu on the bottom to wear to the shower, despite my pleas that she wear this adorable, simple gray dress with a purple stripe across the bottom. I decided to have fun with this and dressed myself in similar colors -- black tank paired with a hot pink skirt. Me and Mini Me we were.
On the way to the shower, I learned that we would not have to take the kids to Bowling with us that night. Halleleijah! One of Cal's former teachers was available to babysit. Whew. That (taking the Leatherkids to Bowling) had disaster and pain written all over it.
The shower was really nice. Well done, Jennifer. Good, old friends... yummy food... and plenty of booze. It was possibly the best shower I've ever been to. And Ella and Courtney (my friend, Jen's daughter) played really well together.
While Ella and I were at the shower, Dan and Cal played some hoops at home and eventually made their way over to Cal's friend's house for a playdate, the drop-off kind. Cal's at the age where that's okay. It's wonderful, particularly for the dropper offer.
Since it wasn't my dad coming over to babysit, I felt the need to clean our filthy house. By the time we got home after the shower, I had about 1.5 hours to do so. Lucky for me, Dan had already started it, having picked up the kitchen and mopped some of the first floor.
I forget exactly how this went down, but Ella threw the tantrum of a lifetime, which landed her in her room... where she very quickly curled up in her bed and fell asleep. I'll be honest, this made for some easier cleaning -- no distractions, whether the offering-to-help-but-really-hindering kind or the needing-constant-attention kind whatsoever.
Ally arrived at our house right on time. As soon as he heard the doorbell, Cal dropped what he was doing (he was just finishing up early) and darted upstairs, claiming he had to brush his teeth. I was suspicious, but maybe. Cal doesn't get that anxious to brush his teeth EVER. 5-10 minutes later, he still hadn't made his way back downstairs, confirming my suspicions that he was just being shy. We called for him, and he slowly made his way downstairs, heading right for Dan's shadow as soon as his feet left the last stair. Ally said "hi" to him, and he hid even more. His face was red. So cute. He is his mother's child.
Meanwhile, Ella had snubbed her nose at the dinner that Dan had prepared for her, partly because she may have still be half sleeping, partly because she was still full from all of the chips and cake she ate at the shower. She had plopped herself on the couch in front of the TV.
We had an easy exit and made our way to Bowling where I proceeded to have another one of those need-to-ramp-up nights, barely breaking 100 the first game and eventually reaching my average the third. We had moments of greatness highlighted by Joe's 220-ish in game 1 and moments of not-so-greatness highlighted by Dan's trick bowling, releasing the ball between his legs or around his back, by game 3.
Since we were on the babysitting clock, the four of us made our way back to our house instead of to the next-door restaurant after we finished our match, where we found the kids sound asleep and our last-minute babysitter with a good report; and we proceeded to enjoy some double-dough pizza from a nearby pizza joint and a couple of good bottles of wine.
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