The big #4

I know I am terribly unreliable in my posting. As per usual here comes another catch up post.

Ella's fourth birthday (clear back in January) was quite a day and not in a good way. It began when Seth woke up screaming and wheezing at 2 am. After creating a sauna in the kids bathroom, tylenol, vaporub, rocking, and many prayers he finally went back to sleep at 4. He woke up at 7 and was still wheezing. I knew we were headed to the doctor. We went through so much with Seth when he was new that all I have to say to the nurse is "This is Seth's mom" and they put me through to doctor Schlichter. Now the Dr's office is a drive but we don't want to switch because he knows us and our kids etc. I am such a creature of schedules and routines that if I get thrown off it puts me into a panic. Plus this was Ella's birthday and I had such plans. Gratefully Rob had gotten up extra early and made his banana cinnamon chocolate chip pancackes (Ella's fav). I threw some clothes on the kids and we ate the pancakes in the car. The doctor gave him a breathing treatment, albuteral prescription and set me up with a service to bring a nebulizer. I thought if I called the service at the dr's they could be there by the time we got home. Wrong. I also stopped by the Harmons to pick up the prescription. The computers were down and expected to be back up in 2 hours. Yeah right. I had promised Ella that I would take her and her best friend, Kaylie to Jungle Jims and to lunch. It was now 2:00 and we were all starving and still waiting for the service. When the guy came I practically grabbed the nebulizer and kicked him out the door swearing I would read the instructions and figure it out myself. Then we jumped in the car and went to lunch. At this point I should have realized that nothing else was going to go as planned, yet somehow I still believed they would. Thank heavens for my mom who came to watch Seth and baked Ella's birthday cakes as well (I was planning on baking that morning but was preempted). The girls had a fun time at Jungle Jims. I think that it was the only thing that went well that day.



We rode the merry go round several times. Each time they had to pick a new horse, even though they were all practically identical except for the color of the ribbons.



Sorry for the horrible pictures. I was still trying to figure my new camera out. Plus the girls look really nonplused in every picture. I swear they told me they had a good time afterward.







After much explaining from me they finally figured out how to make their airplane go up and down. Their lives will never be the same.



The bumper cars were interesting. If you remember my older post about Jungle Jims you remember the hilarity of Ella turning in circles trying to drive her bumper car. This year Ella was much more savy. Daddy has been letting her drive down our street on his lap. There were only two active cars out there. Both of them were doing a fine job of not hitting anything. Something had to be done! I started yelling "Ella go bonk into those other girls!" They looked at me like I was crazy. After a little more prodding they T boned the poor unsuspecting girls. I couldn't help myself. I cheered and laughed. Then I looked around and saw that I was getting evil eyes from the on-looking mothers. So we moved onto the roller coaster. Ella didn't last long. She made it one time around before I had to the make the slitting the neck gesture to the 17 year old miscreant operating the ride. Turns out she inherited the scardy cat gene from me.

While at JJ I had been attempting to reach the girl who does our clubhouse scheduling. I had left an obscene amount of messages during the preceding week but still no response. I assumed that there wouldn't be a conflict for Ella's party there that evening but we all know how my assumptions had been going. I dropped Kaylie off and we got home at about 5:30. Just enough time to make some dinner and head to the clubhouse to decorate before the 7 o'clock party. Wrong again. At 6:30 Rob and I decided to go decorate while my mom watched the kids. We were going with a Disney Princess theme as per Ella's request. One problem I couldn't find the pass key. It turned out that I had lent my pass card to my friend so she could use the treadmills. And of course she didn't have her phone on her. After exhausting all possible methods of contacting her I decided to go door to door. Everyone on our circle has a clubhouse key surely this would not be a difficult task... Sometime during that half an hour trek through my neighborhood I completely lost my faith in humanity. I will spare the details but after 6 attempts I finally got a key. We drove to the clubhouse and ran in to begin decorating. There were 5 people in the kitchen/living room area sitting on the floor reading through a play. I begged and pleaded and suggested that they move to the gym area where no one was. They didn't go for it. I had never officially received confirmation that I had reserved the room and they were there first and were not going to move. We drove back home in defeat and called everyone to tell them to come to our house instead of the clubhouse. Then we had 5 minutes to transform our house from a complete disaster area to a princess wonderland. The party was a whirlwind to me. I barely remember anything I was so incensed. I think that Ella enjoyed it which is all that matters. During the opening of presents Seth decided to completely lose his mind either that or he was in pain. Probably the latter. My mom tried to calm him down upstairs but the sounds of the screaming really put a damper on things. I went upstairs and attempted to give him his first at home breathing treatment. This ,as we learned, was a two man job. One person had to hold the poor suffering boy down while the other had to put a mask over his face and make sure none of the liquid leaked out. Between the horrible sound of the machine and the sounds of a screaming child being held against his will the guests must have all decided it was time to leave. It was about that point that I had my nervous break down. Surprisingly after a good scream and a good cry with Seth I felt much better. Next year I am going low-key with birthdays and if someone gets sick we are postponing the birthday celebrations.

Some pictures of the festivities. Not my best work but at least I documented it for posterity.