Mama's birthday

The flowers and the paint color are the only two aspects of the room redecoration that earned Julie's approval. It has occurred to me that since each flower represents a hole in the wall and that the paint color represents, you know, a hell of a lot of work, that she might have just convinced herself that it was acceptable.

Everything else--the rug, the sheets, the duvet cover, the candle holders, the wall decal, and the blanket--made her want to style-barf. Thankfully she is past the barfy stage of her pregnancy or she might have actually barfed, and then we would've had to keep whatever misguided pieces of bedroom ugliness the barf hit.

So we're taking everything back. She's already purchased new bedding and this weird wreath with wooden flowers on it that looks like it was designed by the love child of Martha Stewart and a woodchuck. But what do I know?

Even though I'm an idiot in a lot of respects, due to a beautiful cosmic accident I'm smart enough to know that once a birthday surprise becomes a collaborative project, it no longer exists in the realm of birthday. So in a fit of cost-be-damned husband bravado, and in wholehearted acknowledgment that Julie will never (no, Mom, never) be pregnant on her birthday again, I bought her an iPad.

When she opened it, her water nearly broke. Add a couple hundred more husband points for me to lose in the delivery room by committing various infractions such as providing the sperm in the first place.

We ate dinner at our favorite neighborhood place. They brought out key-lime pie with a candle in it.


After a moment of hesitation, Lyla decided she wanted to eat all of it.


And on the way home she sang the following: "Happy birday to you, Mamaaa."

Meanwhile, Lyla's birthday is in four days. And then this blog will end.