Post Father's Day weekend musings

The kids have started this thing where if they see a camera (or an iPhone, as it were) they have to make silly faces. See?

We're visiting with Lester's Uncle Derrick at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, near the D.C. zoo. This is right after we got in trouble (me included) for playing on the escalators.

Sometimes with Clair, though, we can still get a pretty decent pic - if she's in a good mood.

Movie star!

These eyes slay me, seriously.

This picture cracks me up -- of them at Naomi's 4th birthday party (Happy Birthday, Naomi!) --  because it says so much about who they are right now. Dean is like, "Juice boxes and junk food and things I don't get to eat a lot. YAAASSSS!" Cary is all, "What's Dean doing? Dean! Dean! Dean!" and Clair is totally ignoring the instructions that everyone is supposed to wait to eat their pizza until we all cheer for Naomi. Yup. That's them.

I successfully avoided eating the pizza AND the cupcakes at this party. Then later on that night, I succumbed to one of each. Sigh.

We spent Father's Day at my parents' house, where we mostly just hung out and spent time with Dad (and we saw Pop-Pop for a second, too, so yay!) and ate a lot of food and sweets. My sister Tahira and her husband bought a table full of crabs, so we picked a few of those -- and it felt like summertime, finally.

While I was there, I thought a lot about how lucky I am to have an amazing father and a husband who is an amazing father to my children. I know that everyone isn't so fortunate. I thank God for all my blessings -- and I pray my children and children's children will always know the unmatched love of a father.

Dad and me, circa 1980.

You gave me wings and made me fly.
You touched my hand I could touch the sky.
I lost my faith, you gave it back to me.
You said no star was out of reach.
You stood by me and I stood tall;
I had your love I had it all.
I'm grateful for each day you gave me.
Maybe I don't know that much,
But I know this much is true:
I was blessed because I was loved by you...

41 revolutions around the sun! (Or something like that.)

Wait. Is that right? You know I'm no good at math. If I turned 41 yesterday (which I did), does that mean I've now gone around the sun 40 times? 41 times? Or 42 times?

Is this a ridiculous question? Whatever.

Happy birthday to me!

Yesterday, I planned to go into work and sit in my air-conditioned office, occasionally stopping over to Facebook to "like" all my Happy Birthday posts, and then go out to lunch with my co-workers, who had planned a trip out for Indian buffet.

But Michelle called in sick (she'd been feeling poorly all week) and so I ended up staying home with Cary, Dean and Clair, whose idea of celebrating my birthday involves me being at their beck and call and refereeing fights and celebrating THEM. The prospect of being stuck in the house all day with those three nuts is bad enough on a regular day (the fighting, the noise, the messes, the whining! Lawd!) but on my birthday, it just seemed completely untenable.

So I packed us some brown bag lunches and hustled on out to the B&O Railroad Museum, where we have a membership, for a free day out and about in the sun!

Faithful readers of this blog will know that those "meh" looks on Cary and Dean's faces mean, "Holy cannoli! It's the CONDUCTOR! I'm bursting with excitement!"

Later on, we went to pick up Cary's glasses, which were finally ready. (More about that in a later post.)

These are his new glasses! Isn't he the CUTEST?

I ordered this book to help prepare him for glasses -- and because that little boy looks like Cary to me. It cracks me up!

And my Dad drove all the way from his side of the world -- over an hour -- just to bring me a plant, and pose for pictures with Cary, to show him that all the "good-looking fellas have glasses."

My Dad always makes me feel so special!

Lester took me and the whole family out to dinner at Gertrude's, which is at the Baltimore Museum of Art. It was the kids' first visit to a "white tablecloth" restaurant. At first, it looked like we were headed for disaster. Clair was whining like crazy and wouldn't sit in her chair. The boys were whining like crazy and playing with the knives on the table. People were giving us the judgy eyes. But we ordered their food first, so it came pretty quickly, and after they got a little food in their bellies, things calmed down and we ended up having a really nice meal. Dean kept trying to wave down the waiter (we stopped him this time) and when they brought my dessert, he blew out my candle (of course); Clair ate a good fourth of my $23 crab cake and Cary sat contentedly eating his food and fancy donuts and looking around at everyone and everything like, "Well would you look at that?"

I didn't take any pictures, because the kid-wrangling was a full-time job. But we didn't get kicked out - so #winning.

Earlier that morning, the kids came in to my bedroom singing "Happy Birthday" and presenting me with a homemade card and small gifts (a heavy-duty lobster cracker, because the one I had was garbage, and a new fluffy pillow because my old cheap one was flat and giving me neck-aches).

And last week, just because I am the luckiest girl in the world, Lester set up a whole surprise date night where he:

Sent a car to pick me up from work (thanks, Uber!)

Selfie on the way to the restaurant! I felt like a movie star!

Met me at the Thames Street Oyster House, a FABULOUS seafood restaurant in Fells Point that I highly recommend if you are ever in Baltimore. He was at the bar when I got there, looking dapper, with a glass of sangria ordered for me.

It's not every day a tall, handsome man (my natty beau - get it?) meets you at a restaurant bar with a drink at the ready.

This was the view from our table!

I devoured this lobster roll, which was so damn good, I can't EVEN. But, guess what? I left the fries on the plate! Yay for restraint!

See? No lobster roll. Plate full of fries.

Because I was saving room for this bread pudding with warm caramel sauce. Oh. Em. Gee. Soooo good!

Took me out to a play at the Hippodrome Theater. The show was hilarious.

I ran into my gynecologist at the theater, who was out with his wife. #Awkward.

And then, whisked me off to a room at the Four Seasons (!!), which we got through a hook-up from our friend Antwyne (thanks Antwyne and Mari!), where we stayed the night (thanks to my sister Tahira who watched all the children for us!)

Tahira made a pizza with the kids! They loved it.

Look at  Matty giving Clair a kiss because he LOVES her so much. And check out Clair looking so over it, because he ANNOYS her so much. Poor sweet Matty. One day, she's gonna be your best friend, Matt Pat. Just wait.

And to top it all off -- my awesome co-workers re-scheduled my Indian buffet lunch for today! And invited Stacey to come back and eat with us!

Soooo, basically BEST BIRTHDAY EVER. (As usual!)

I'm so blessed and lucky and happy as a clam. I hope the next 41 (40? 42?) rotations around the sun are just as perfect!

Bye-bye curls

I thought I could live with Cary's patchy hair, but Lester and I both decided it'd be better to get his hair cut and let it all grow back in evenly.

So I took the boys to the barber on Saturday. We saw the same barber who cut Cary's hair the first time. She laughed at his bald spot, and got straight to work. Cary, for his part, was not thrilled, but didn't cry.

Look at my little curl-less boy. :-(

When it was all over, Dean clapped wildly and said "Good job, Cary!"

I have the best boys!

To reward Cary for having to lose all his hair to his brother's barbering experiment, and to reward Dean for being a supportive little brother, I took my sweeties out for pizza afterward.

They sat at the table like big boys, and didn't get down and run around or throw things or act like banshees. I've been teaching them to sit either "on your bottoms or on your knees" at restaurants, and they were really good about remembering that. They said "thank you!" to the servers, and waved "Hi!" to the children in the booth behind us. We stuffed ourselves full of cheesy pizza and chicken strips and fries. The boys even tried honey mustard for the first time (Cary - NO!; Dean - Yes, sir!!) and life was good.

Notice Dean's trance-like state? There was a TV on behind me with some kind of NASCAR-like race going on.

So all in all, I'd say, the aftermath of losing Cary's curls was not so bad after all. I got to bond with my big boys and Cary actually looks kinda cute.

So, bye-bye curls. We'll miss you, but we'll be waiting for you to come back in a few months. (And this time, we'll keep the clippers away from Deanie!)