37

Last week I turned 37. I celebrated 4 times "officially" and about about 10 "unofficially". This is one of those times when it pays to have an extended family. The first get together was with my friend Kate and her finance (this is a recent development and we are sooooo excited for them!!!) Barbara. We share the same birthday so we went out as a group to celebrate. It was a great time but the next day, let's just say - not so great. Anyway, party #2 was that Sat. with John's parents. They came by for dinner and sang HB to me. Big fun! Party #3, my mother & John Z - brought me all my favorite food, chicken & rice a la Sha, mocha cake, presents galore! Party #4 my father and Karen came and brought me a fantastic cake (purple!) and filet mignon. Big fun, and I'm really glad they came. He is retiring this week (basically) and moving to Florida for the winter so it's possible we won't see them regularly for, well, ever.
That's a lot of birthday. I'm glad it's over because I truly don't like to make a big deal of my birthday but there are a lot of people who I like to see and who are good to me and want to visit so, *sigh*, I guess I'll just have to put up with it ;-)
Today I am picking up Derek at the airport because he's going to the Vineyard for a wedding. He's such a "beautiful person". This is actually his friend, Matt, who was his best man. Hopefully it's not a huge cluster pluck getting there. He & I are so calm when things go wrong you know.
Anyway, it will be nice to see him and I'm dragging him to daycare to pick up the kids (he doesn't know this). It'll be cute!
On the kid front - Brooke had been worse than ever (note past tense) and it came to a head on Sunday at naptime. She was exhausted, she wouldn't go down for her nap and I had just about had it. I yelled down to John that we needed to get a lock for her door today. As predicted she heard me and freaked out but finally went to sleep. Well, the other person that heard was John's father (as he was in the basement with John at the time). This diabolical plot by me made it's way back to Quincy and my mother-in-law, Anne. Monday John popped by their house to say hi and Anne mentioned that she knew someone that locked their kid in her room and now she's in jail. Now I realized you can't prove causation here but still - it's an interesting story.
Let me say this - I have been against the lock on the door idea from it's inception because I know that as a child I would have freaked out. I truly appreciate the fact that my mother and my mother-in-law feel comfortable weighing in on things like this. You should be able to learn from people who've been through it and I am able to take all the advice and sift through it and make a more educated guess. No lock. It's off the table. Now if she ends up in jail it's not my fault.