My life, My circus

A few weeks ago, OK - like September 3, 2010 - I started planning Adam's first Birthday Party. A Petting Zoo. Clowns, not the scary kind. Happy Clowns. Elephant Rides. Fireworks. Gourmet Chocolate Cake. Tea, in fancy cups. A live orchestra serenading us with Mozart, Chopin, and the occasional children's song.  My list went on and on.

Andy grew tired of talking about the details. I knew this party would only succeed if I took over.

I'm very lucky to have a friend/nanny/former student named Laura who is so talented and creative and great with Adam. She got on the computer and pulled up idea after idea. Blog after blog. She's the real brains behind this circus!

The invitations have been sent. I really had thought about just doing Evites. But then a conversation with Megan abruptly changed my mind. That conversation MAY have gone something like this:

"I'm thinking of doing Evites for Adam's First Birthday party. That's OK, right?"

"What?!? No! Its absolutely not OK. Only mothers who only half love their children do evites for a FIRST Birthday!"

"Oh. Ok! Well, I'll order some paper ones then."

So, the Evites went out as I was waiting for the paper ones to come in. Then the paper ones came in and went out. And on another note - have you noticed that RSVP has gone completely out the window? You can write RSVP or PLEASE LET ME KNOW - And it just doesn't matter!  I may have food for 60 and only have Andy, Adam and I. Oh well. It'll freeze.

I do have this problem about feeding people. I've convinced myself that all people who enter my home are starving. They come from a land with no food. They may never have had food before. Ever. And its my job to feed them. To nourish them before sending them back to their land of saltless, stale crackers and tepid, moldy water.

A few years ago, I was dating this wonderful, handsome, smart, funny guy. We decided to host a Christmas Party. This wonderful, handsome, smart, funny guy did, in fact, own a home with a kitchen, but it was for looks only as it had never been used. Well, maybe to heat up the occasional pan of frozen taquitos. I think he was thinking a few bags of chips, we'd splurge on a couple dips, some liquor and maybe even a Christmas tree.

Well, unbeknownst to him, I was scouring cookbooks and online recipes coming up with the most fantastic menu ever. And for some reason I was particularly found of shrimp. In fact, listening to me talk about the menu for the party was like watching Forrest Gump. We were going to have Shrimp Cocktail, Hot Shrimp, Pepperoncini Shrimp...

Let's just say I've never heard the end of the time I put 12 lbs. of shrimp into said man's grocery cart.

He married me anyway. And he knew well before the nuptials that I had this problem with feeding people.

Adam will hopefully get a balanced side of the two of us. Hopefully, he'll enjoy feeding people, but also have the brains to realize that 12 lbs. of shrimp is a bit much. I think he's pretty smart. Sometimes he looks and me says, "Mother, must you really insist upon serving every food group at every meal?"

Speaking of Adam, he's this close to walking. He'll can walk about 4 feet on his own without falling. He gets pretty proud of himself at about the 2 feet mark and starts clapping his hands so wildly that it almost causes him to wipe out. If he'd just concentrate... He's like his mother in that regard. Doing two things at once, especially when one of those things is walking, is too challenging and most often results in a dislocated knee or a bruise on the butt.

We just had a scary week here at the Dokulil house. Out of nowhere, Adam spiked a temperature on Monday and we raced off to the pediatrician's office confident we'd come home with some magic concoction and expert advice and he'd be better by Tuesday. Instead, we came home with no prescription, print outs on how combining tylenol and motrin causes toxicity and ER visits, and encouragement on not to freak out because he's got a fever. We also came home with a 104.7 fever.  Of course I did the right thing. I freaked out! I administered tylenol. Cursed terrible words (in my head) at the pediatrician for not sending us home with the magic concoction and checked on Adam every 15 minutes that night and slept with the monitor attached to my ear. The fever went down, and then the crying started. Then mom went down. Then dad came home. Then out of nowhere, Adam shot up from my lap laughing and talking about how much fun his birthday party was going to be and could we make sure there were zebras in the petting zoo.

By Friday, Adam was back to his old self again, starving, and complaining about the all the food groups on his tray.

It was a long week!