Birthday Boy

Chances are, if you are a member of our family, and it's your birthday, you'll get a banner made for you. A 'Happy Birthday You!' banner. A colorful, happy, large, blaring banner.Trouble is, after helping me decorate about 12 dozen of these suckers over the years, my boyz have gone on strike. "I will never, ever make another birthday banner ever again!" exclaimed one, sometime last winter. "MOM - WHY do you make us DO these?" the other chimed in. It's a conspiracy, I tell you. They always know I'll cave if they gang up on me. I have issues with being liked.Kinda takes the whole "thoughtful" and "made with love" and "homemade touch" types of sentiments and thwacks them upside a brick wall, doesn't it. So, now I make the banners my own self. And they swoop in when it's all finished and say things like, "I don't even get to do one letter? I mean, I'd have done one letter," and then they add a little flourish here and a little flourish there, just so they can steal my spotlight take a bit of credit for the masterpiece be involved of their own volition. The boogers.But that doesn't mean the boyz won't go the extra mile in other ways. It was Rob's birthday on Monday - (What, you expected my post about his birthday to be timely? Pay attention people) - and I took off for the grocery store to get some last minute fixin's for the like, gazillion three kinds of pizza he wanted for dinner, when I received the first cell phone call.

"Mom?" Jonathan said, "I need four 'C' batteries."

"Ok, what for?" I asked, curious.

"For Dad's birthday card."

Um, ok... I received the next cellphone call while I was shopping for the like, gazillion ingredients for the *ss-widening decadent ice cream fudge dessert Rob wanted. "Mom?" Jonathan asked, "Do we have a tape?"

"Tape? To wrap something?" I asked, curious.

"No, a tape. To make a recording."

Um, ok... good thing our family is, in some ways, stuck back in the 80's, what with Rob's knowledge of all things 80's pop culture, our stack of casette tapes (White Snake, anyone?), and my collection of elf boots and pink hair bows. We did, indeed, have a recordable tape.

The final call came as I was driving home.

"Mom?" Jonathan asked, "Do we have a shoe box?"

"There's an old one in the bottom of the hutch in the bedroom in the basement, but it's got stuff in it, so you'll have to empty it out, but be sure to put everything back into the hutch. Got that?"

"Yep. Bye."

When I arrived home, I found this in the middle of the living room. A homemade bomb? An electronic mouse trap? What is it? More on that later.

You may recall that, around here, we can be overly zealous in our birthday preparations. Jonathan requires no fewer than 4 parties because he takes after his mama and gets a little twitchy at the thought of mixing his groups. Rob is a bit less fickle, overall, but Monday night turned out to be his "Kid Party."

He invited my sister's kids, Ana, Madelina, and Armando. First, they all ate pizza.

Then, it was time for dessert.
And after like, a gazillion three pizzas, one ear-splitting rendition of "Happy Birthday to You-ou-ou-ou!", and a dessert that keeps cardiac surgeons in business that's beyond-tasty, they all gathered 'round for gifts. The thing about kids and kid parties is, you get lots of help with opening presents. You also get lots of this:
And this:
And it's contagious, this sort of silliness... I mean, forget the fake, posed, smarmy family shots, I wanna see the real deal. And in our family? The real deal? Pure goofiness.It was a good party, even though my sister got into such a raucous game of keep-away that she was leaping over couches and knocking over small children. I'm telling you, you never know what might happen around here. Don't pull a muscle, sis, you ain't no spring chicken anymore, y'know! (Dear gawd - I've turned into Farmer Bill!)

And remember the homemade bomb mysterious shoebox? What was it, you ask?

Why, only the coolest homemade birthday card ever.

Listen For Yourself - then come back and answer this: Have we cornered the market on silliness or what?

Happy Birthday Honey! Nah Nah, you're still older than me!