"My Best Day"

On my best day, it's my birthday,
Made a new friend at school and I'm getting all A's.
I come home to a birthday surprise:
My sister has been evicted and now her room is mine.
My lucky day! Got money in my pocket,
It's snowing whipped cream and raining chocolate...

Okay, maybe today wasn't quite that epic, but I got to have a great time with Mikey today!

It all started at 1:30am when Hannah woke up crying her head off. Cathy and I hadn't quite fallen asleep yet, so I got up to go see what was wrong. She had actually rolled over from her back onto her hands and knees and she was in hysterics. She was so upset that I picked her up and took her back into the bedroom with me for her to see Mama and hopefully calm down.

Cathy was able to get her back to sleep... at 3:30am! Hannah had the snotties and a fever and she was crabby as can be. Cathy would rock her in the chair until Hannah fell asleep, but then as soon as Hannah hit the bed, she woke up crying. One time I tried to rock her in the rocking chair, and you know what Hannah said to that? "Ma ma ma ma MA!!!" I got the message!

So we finally got to sleep, all three of us (thankfully Mikey never woke up, even though Hannah's room is right next to his). Cathy had given Hannah some baby Tylenol and that apparently took the fever down to the point where Hannah was comfortable enough to sleep. Four hours later, right on time, Hannah woke up again... this time I was the only one who woke up with her, though, so Cathy got a little more rest. I gave the baby another dose of medicine and she calmed right down and we both went back to sleep.

I figured Cathy and I would be total basket cases today... turns out she was and I wasn't! Cathy's been congested herself for I guess a week or two now, and losing out on that amount of sleep sure didn't help. We actually had planned to go to the first birthday party of our friends Chris and Courtney's little boy Timothy, but we decided that neither Hannah nor Cathy really needed to get outside today (they needed to stay home and rest), and besides, we didn't want to risk sharing their cold with the other babies at the party. Mikey and I went for a little bit... we couldn't stay very long, though, because Mikey's new soccer team had their first game starting just one hour after the party! Here's Mikey hanging out with a couple of the babies at the party:



So we arrived at the party about 15 minutes early, knowing we would have to leave a half hour later to go to the game, but we really wanted to be there for at least a little bit of the party! We hung out as long as we could (Chris was like, "Well, thanks for coming out and only getting to watch us finish setting up!" I told him we didn't mind... we just wanted to get to be there as long as we could!) and then we went off to the soccer game.

The game was really terrific. The team has only practiced together two times, so playing a full game being relatively out of shape and out of practice was visibly hard on them, but they played really well. Unfortunately, they happened to be playing quite possibly the best team in the league, the one hand-picked by the league owner! Even so, they kept them down to I think five points, and even scored one on them. So we lost, 1-5. Here's a picture of some of the action (you can see Mikey off on the right, next to the goalie):



After the game we rushed home and Mikey grabbed a bath and changed clothes... we had tickets to go see the "Family Matinee" concert of Trout Fishing in America! These are two guys who have been playing together since the 70s, playing folk rock type of music, and since the early 90s they've also been making "Family" (fun kid-friendly) music. My friend Ann from work knows Ezra from TFIA, so she told me about the concert a month or two ago and got me interested in the band. I checked out their It's A Puzzle and inFINity CDs from the library, and Mikey immediately fell in love with the highly silly and fun songs. So we've been listening to those two CDs in the car for weeks and weeks, and we were incredibly excited about the concert!

We were definitely NOT disappointed. I don't think I've ever had that much fun at a show for kids... not even the big spectacular ones like Sesame Street Live. It was fun and funny and Mikey had a blast. When they played the first riffs of "Alien In My Nose," which is among the most disgusting kids' songs I've ever heard (but it TOTALLY ROCKS DUDE!!!), Mikey was like, YEEEEAAAAHH!!!!! He was dancing and grooving and having a great time, and Ann was sitting behind him and I think she was watching him as much as the show! Here's the picture I took at the very beginning of the show. I took this one and an usher came and told me I wasn't allowed to take pictures (they did not announce that during the pre-show "Welcome to the show, please observe the exits, blah blah blah" blurb, or else I wouldn't have taken even this one):



Afterward we hung around for a few minutes to meet the guys. We got all three of them (the two "official" members tour with a friend of theirs who helps to fill out some of the arrangements) to autograph a CD and got a picture with Ezra and Keith. Ann even clued us in on who Ezra's wife was, and we told her how much we enjoyed the concert, too. All of them were SUPER nice to us! In fact, we watched them interact with a bunch of other children, and they were so pleasant and friendly to all of them. They look like the nicest guys in the world, and it isn't just a look:



OK, so maybe it wasn't my birthday or Mikey's, and maybe it wasn't raining chocolate on us. But we did get to go to a birthday party anyway, and we got to spend all kinds of time together. Poor Cathy and Hannah didn't get to have very much fun, but I'm so thankful that I got to spend some time with my boy!