Where does one begin?

One could begin last week, when one spent a fair amount of time sitting on the toilet while barfing in a Halloween pumpkin bucket (don’t you keep one handy to play with in your bath tub?), or one could begin two years ago tonight, when one was flippantly out for a pasta dinner while in labor, unaware of dire twists and impending abdominal surgery, but at any rate, one could say it has been a most intriguing run-up to this year’s ybab birthday celebration.

Martha Stewart be damned! Martha Stewart would have known to pencil in “salmonella,” and she would have hired someone to get sick for her and her entire household. That person would have barfed in a hand-turned ceramic bucket with a pleasing shade not unlike the egg of a young Buff Orpington. Then Martha would have been free to make a monkey cake with a face fully articulated by sixteen colors of buttercream icing. A ybab has an incredibly long memory when promised a monkey cake, so a monkey cake was obtained through back channels. I am ashamed to say what actually took place. It may have contained real monkey.

At least I had the foresight to have cart loads of toys arrive UPS in the days leading up to ybab’s birthday, so once she was feeling better just as I was becoming completely incapacitated, she was able to enjoy learning to use a box cutter and diving into piles of bubble wrap. It was like her birthday all week! And so efficient. I will never wrap again.

My parents are also in town, which is a story in itself for another time. They arrived one morning wearing matching lime green shirts, but not exactly matching: one was more of a kiwi than a lime. “Did you feel I was not already sufficiently nauseated?” I asked. “Oh, we didn’t plan it.” “But surely you looked at each other before you left the hotel room?” This line of questioning was fruitless because my sister had told me about the matching lime green shirts making an appearance weeks ago. They know exactly what they are doing!

And they would be the only ones to know what they are doing, but somehow Mr. H and I rallied and pulled off a birthday party. Mr. Whole Foods may have helped. For my re-entry to solid food, I went with sangria. Vitamin C is good for what ails you. A good time was had by 100% of the ybabs who live in my house, and a cat has barfed a festive coil of pink ribbon, so we will count this as successful, even though the poor monkey is never getting back from space.

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