a stitch in time, and then she's nine

Reilly is nine. This is absurd. Sometimes I'm still nine. Then again, sometimes it feels like we are so in sync that I've always had her, you know? The kids' birthdays have never fallen on a Saturday before, so when they wake up to all the decorations and a heap of gifts, they get to open one or two until their Papa gets home. This year it finally happened, which was great because I packed our day to the absolute gills, and needed all the extra hands, wheels, Americanos, I could get my hands on.

First of all, it is getting increasingly difficult to outlast the kids to put up the decorations. I mean, they know they're going to get them, but it's not the same to hand me tape as I hang your streamers as it is to wake up and see, and hopefully thank your lucky stars, that your mom is such a sentimental sap, and loves you so much, she will stay up until 5:00am if that's what it takes so you can stumble out groggily in the morning and feel that magic. That is not what happened this year. I've had raging insomnia for six weeks. Just, awake, all the time. For five weeks it never caught up to me, I was like a machine, getting things done 24 hours a day. Until the night before Reilly's birthday. I collapsed, with socks on (blech), at like 9:00pm. Fortunately, Todd woke up around 3:00am and brought me all the presents, streamers, etc. I cursed his name. I was so tired. He had arranged the gifts on the counter, but of course I had to rearrange them because only moms and gay men know how to arrange things. That wasn't so hard. Next I hung her "Happy Birthday Reilly" banner. That took some doing, but I did it. And then, UGH, the goddamn streamers. I hate streamers. HATE them. H-A-T-E them. But they're a necessity, period. But streamers at 3:00am are insurmountable. While I typically only hang two swags, this year I chose three colours, so that's like, 12,895 pieces of tape, and twice that many tattered, unsightly ends, you know those ends? I could have climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro more easily. Finally, I released her balloons from their hiding spot in the master shower, and let them go, filling the entire room. That's my favourite part. No, wait. Flopping back onto the couch and passing back out is my favourite part.

The fruits of my labour:


Rei and her morning loot. Grandma and friend loot arrives in the evening: (Note that she's a brunette.)


Getting her locks done by Toni, our beloved stylist:


Rei's birthday portrait. I took 100 shots and couldn't ditch this glare:


Lunch at Young's, where she feasted on plain white rice:


Despite being somewhat anti-celebratory, my kids have chosen to have their birthday dinners at McGrath's every year since they were two:


Reilly's half white, half chocolate, half Twilight cake:


I wish she had wished for a bigger cake, I'm just sayin:


Discussing how to spend her gift cards with her best friend Andrea:


And with that, my baby is nine. Happy Birthday Reilly, I'll still hang streamers next year, when you turn 16.