Tragic Sandwich

Tag: party

  • Anatomy of a Birthday Weekend

    Or, What We Did On Our Birthday Vacation

    Thursday (our birthday weekends start early, by necessity)

    • Tour a school that we might want Baguette to attend next year.
    • Decide that we do not want Baguette to attend that school (it seems like a very good school–just not what we want for her).
    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the patio and back yard.
    • Go to speech therapy and music therapy.
    • Go to Costco and buy food and birthday cake.
    • Clean the house.
    • Make items for party games.

    Friday

    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the back yard.
    • Do some work that needs to be done even if I am on vacation.
    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the back yard.
    • Clean the patio.
    • Welcome grandparents and great-aunt, who are visiting from out of town.
    • Go out to dinner.
    • Clean the house.
    • Make party favors.

    Saturday

    • Make party favors.
    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the patio.
    • Make signs for food.
    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the patio.
    • Locate the Happy Birthday banner we bought two years ago.
    • Put up the Happy Birthday banner.
    • Locate more tape for the Happy Birthday banner.
    • Make the salad.
    • Put the Happy Birthday banner back up.
    • Welcome guests. Realize again that we have invited a really large number of people.
    • Abandon hope of keeping the Happy Birthday banner up.
    • Make sure parents and children are enjoying themselves.
    • Call the pizza parlor and confirm that the pizza is actually going to be delivered.
    • Make sure that Baguette has the chance to find some quiet time.
    • Put out the pizza, salad, and signs for the food.
    • Realize that I have left another parent supervising Baguette in the front yard for far longer than is reasonable.
    • Ask Baguette if she wants pizza. (“No thank you.”)
    • Ask Baguette if she wants macaroni and cheese. (“Yes.”)
    • Bring a chair we took outside for the party back inside, because Baguette wants to eat at the table in the breakfast nook like she always does, not at the table on the patio where her friends are.
    • Make sure everyone gets food.
    • Eat one slice of pizza and some salad.
    • Realize that, in spite of all the cleaning, the living room still contains a case of baby wipes and a 3-pack of contact lens solution.
    • Decide not to care.
    • Bring out the cake and put candles on it.
    • Try to light the candles.
    • Try to light the candles.
    • Try to light the candles.
    • Try to light one candle, which is the most that we may be able to keep lit with the breeze.
    • Abandon hope of lighting the candles.
    • Serve the cake.
    • Encourage Baguette to say “thank you for coming to my party” to as many children as possible.
    • Say goodbye to everyone.
    • Try to get Baguette to nap.
    • Abandon hope of getting Baguette to nap.
    • Regroup with grandparents and great-aunt when they come back from their hotels for dinner.
    • Order Chinese food.
    • Eat Chinese food (adults) and macaroni and cheese (Baguette).
    • Open presents from grandparents and great-aunt.
    • Accept that the most enticing part of presents is the paper, which tears interestingly and can be draped as a fetching hat.
    • Say goodnight to grandparents and great-aunt.

    Sunday

    • Have morning meltdown (Baguette, with collateral damage to Mr. Sandwich’s hearing).
    • Regroup with grandparents and great-aunt.
    • Caravan to 7-11 for coffee.
    • Caravan to L.A. Zoo, because it is the weekend and therefore we go to the L.A. Zoo.
    • Look at zoo animals.
    • Get in line for lunch.
    • Take Baguette for a walk, because the line is too long. (Mr. Sandwich)
    • Realize that Baguette is screaming, and Mr. Sandwich is waving energetically from outside the cafeteria.
    • Take Baguette and try to comfort her.
    • Realize that 5 feet away, a zoo docent is holding a small constrictor.
    • Consider one’s pathological fear of snakes.
    • Ask Baguette if she wants to touch a snake.
    • Confirm with Baguette that she wants to touch a snake.
    • Hold Baguette while she touches the snake.
    • Wash Baguette’s hands.
    • Eat lunch.
    • Leave zoo.
    • After Baguette falls asleep in the car, take advantage of the situation to trim her fingernails while Mr. Sandwich runs into the hardware store.
    • Go home and let Baguette unwind.
    • Make brownies for Baguette to take to day care the next day for her actual birthday.
    • Watch Baguette start to spool up again when grandparents and great-aunt rejoin us for dinner.
    • Try to prevent meltdown.
    • Fail.
    • Take Baguette into her room, comfort her, and tell her that she can take time to calm down, but that we will be in the living room so she doesn’t feel abandoned.
    • Give Baguette iPad when she asks for it. (Mr. Sandwich)
    • Be grateful that, this time, the iPad helps her come out of the meltdown instead of exacerbating it, because there is no predicting.
    • Send grandparents out for In-N-Out.
    • Welcome Baguette when she comes back to the living room, feeling better.
    • Feed Baguette one of her favorite noodle dishes.
    • Tell Baguette that we will be on patio, and that she can come out when she wants to.
    • Eat In-N-Out while Baguette plays with party games on back lawn.
    • Say goodbye to grandparents and great-aunt, who are returning to respective homes on Monday.
    • Give Baguette a bath.
    • Open a few gifts for Baguette and talk to her about what they are and which of her friends gave them to her.
    • Write thank-you notes to those friends.
    • Wrangle Baguette into bed.
    • Sleep fitfully.

    Monday

    • Put brownies in car.
    • Take thank-you notes to day care, along with party favor for one guest who didn’t get one.
    • Give brownies to teacher.
    • Realize that Baguette would still really prefer to have some quiet time.
    • Recognize that at this point there is nothing to be done about that.
    • Drop off thank-you notes.
    • Wonder how ABA will go tonight.
    • Wonder how birthday phone call with aunt and uncle will go tonight.
    • Wonder if Baguette will catch stomach bug that is running rampant through her school.
    • Think about how, at this rate, it will take several days to open Baguette’s presents.
    • Go to work.
    • Really, really intend to write the rest of the thank-you notes.

    Little girl in chair, covering face with "Happy Birthday" balloon

  • Auld Lang Syne

    When I was younger, I thought it would be fun to go to a big, blowout New Year’s Eve party.

    I never did. I’m totally fine with that.

    First of all, I didn’t want to go by myself; I wanted to go to that kind of party with a boyfriend. And I almost never had a boyfriend, which limited my opportunities. (I did once go to First Night in Manhattan with a friend, her husband, and her brother, but I’m not even sure that was a set-up; I think we just all wanted to go to First Night.)

    So what have been my favorite New Year’s Eve celebrations?

    Growing up, we would have dinner at a Chinese restaurant and then see some blockbuster or other. That was always good.

    One year–I can’t remember whether I was dating Mr. Sandwich yet–another friend invited me to a party at her brother’s Manhattan apartment (different friend, different brother, same Manhattan). But it was supposed to snow, and my block was always last to be plowed, and at the last minute I canceled because I wasn’t sure I’d get home. Instead, I spent New Year’s Eve curled up on my couch, watching movies I can no longer recall and eating either Chinese food or pizza. The details don’t matter, because what I do remember is that it was a great evening.

    When we were dating, Mr. Sandwich and I spent one New Year’s Eve with his friends, starting at Cheesecake Factory and moving to one friend’s nearby apartment; we spent others playing board games with some of my friends.

    The year we moved into our house, we hosted a party at which I learned that if I’m going to drink, I really need to eat dinner. Or at least lunch. But that lesson didn’t make itself clear until after everyone else had gone home, so the party itself was a lot of fun.

    Since then, we tend to stay home, safe from the drunk drivers of the world. Last year, Bestie and her parents came over for dinner (we planned to start early, to reduce their odds of being menaced by drunk drivers on their return). A good time was had by all, including Wicket–although the hat placed on her head spoke more to her tolerance than to her awareness of the passage of time.

    This year, we have planned absolutely nothing. It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with lots of events filled with people who want to see Baguette. She’s done really well with it, but she needs plenty of downtime. We all do. So we have no plans, and I think it’s going to be another great evening.

    So to all, near and far–may you have a Happy New Year. And those good wishes aren’t just from me. They’re also from Wicket.

    small dog wearing Happy New Year hat and leis

  • Birthday Fun

    I’m a big fan of how I grew up. And I’ve always imagined giving my children the kind of birthdays that I enjoyed when I was young.

    But there are alternatives. Today we went to a party for one of Baguette’s friends, held at a local indoor playground. The adults got to talk while keeping an eye on the kids; the kids got to wander from toy to toy.

    Also there was pizza. And cake. And coffee.

    Baguette loved the slides, and the toddler-sized basketball hoop, and the little cars that rolled on tracks like tiny roller coaster, and her first trip into a bouncer. But none of those were her favorite. What was?

    I think we may need to find her a ball-pit bed.

  • “I Think She’s Just Being a Weird Baby Today”

    Baguette’s Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit this weekend. They live out of town, and it’s been about four months since she’s seen them. That’s a quarter of her life, so it took her a little time to remember who they are. But once she did, she plopped down in Grandpa’s lap for reading time.

    Unfortunately, on Saturday Baguette woke up as Grumpy Baby. She didn’t like anything, and she particularly didn’t like it if I put her down. And while she did consent to a nap on Grandpa’s chest, it didn’t seem to help her mood much. This did not exactly simplify our preparations for that night’s cookout for 16 people (steak, salmon, sausages, asparagus, and tomato-rice salad, by the way).

    Baguette remained clingy throughout the cookout, although she did allow herself to be entertained by the six-year-old who provided the title to this post–a statement made, by the way, with a tone of acceptance and tolerance that I consider to be quite impressive at any age. And although she wanted very little to do with Grandma and Grandpa for much of the day, she did lean in and give them both goodnight kisses through her pacifier.

    Sunday was better; she started out with post-party fussiness, but perked up with a trip to the park. There she climbed up and slid down the slides, worked her way up stairs, and played in the sand. When we moved to a shady spot on the grass, she realized that “Da-Dee” wasn’t with us. Three different times, she set off down the path to find him, more than happy for Grandpa to walk with her as she looked. Then she’d come back and paw through my purse before setting out again.

    After dinner, she settled in with Grandpa and her four books that she likes, and made him read to her for at least half an hour. When it came time for Grandma and Grandpa to leave, she leaned in for hugs all around and waved to them as they drove away. We’ll go through it all over again in November, when we get together for Thanksgiving.

    And now, of course, I realize that part of Baguette’s “Weird Baby” episode can be attributed to Saturday’s lunch. Just because she liked the chicken tikka masala doesn’t mean it entirely agreed with her.

  • Birthday Extravaganzas

    We worked hard to avoid one. My contention? A one-year-old doesn’t know it’s her birthday. She doesn’t know what birthdays are. So the party isn’t really for her.

    That’s why we went with a party we wanted–cookout and cake, served to family. Mr. Sandwich wood-grilled steaks and sausages, and I grilled salmon and asparagus on the gas grill. I also made a tomato-rice-parmesan salad that I saw in Real Simple and couldn’t stop thinking about. And then there was cake (with a cupcake for Baguette) frosted in an unintentionally poi-like shade of purple.

    As for the basic premise, I was totally on target. She had no idea why all those people were there, and passed out on her grandpa’s shoulder for most of the party. But I can’t blame her. Turning one is hard work.