Birthday Bedlam

As it happened this year, my birthday fell on a Sunday. The day began as all birthdays do here at the Wright Place, with cake and ice cream for breakfast or in my case, a Dairy Queen ice cream cake.

When the last drip of ice cream cake was licked off of the plate, we began to do the Sunday Morning Dance. (Que circus music.) Darrin, already showered, climbed the steps to dress Molly and supervise the outfitting of the remaining children. I made a mad dash to the showers, and was half way through my hair and make up routine when a polka-dot clad Kate marched into the bathroom ready for her "up-do".

As I wielded the curling iron on Kate's behalf, I heard my Man begin his honorable journey to the basement to have a go at ironing the shirt that he'd asked me to iron for him yesterday (oops!).

"Why isn't this iron working?" rose a perplexed voice from the depths.

"Because it is Sunday morning! Hang on, I'll be down." answered a guilt ridden hair-dresser.

I added the "icing" to Kate's up-do and headed down to Laundry Lane. It appeared upon my arrival that the GFI thingy had flipped, or sprung, or whatever the official word may be. As I was pointing out this fact, my Man jumped in to action, literally, and landed on top of the washing machine which is the only way one can reach the outlet in question, but not before braining himself on a lit light bulb. Attempting to hide my snicker, I gave more instructions, none of which fixed the problem.

"Move over," said I. And move over he did. I hopped on to the washer avoiding the bulb with great skill I thought, and pushed all the same buttons, expecting a different result. No dice. After resetting a breaker, my Man sprang back onto the washer and re-brained himself on the same bulb. Still, no go with the outlet, but that light bulb was hanging tough.

Thinking I'd save the day and trying to look like the super-hero I pretend to be, I snatched up the ironing board and marched over to another outlet only to discover that the basement division of outlets must have been on strike--no power there either. Aggravation rising in my stomach, I folded the ironing board and picked it up at which point the legs let loose and hit me in the face! Nothing to do at this point but laugh out loud.

Shirt finally ironed, I met a curler sportin' Meg in front of the mirrors for a comb-out.

What a gorgeous hair day for my blondie! Molly was going with a low-maintenance do for the day, so I began again to style my own coif.

I decided to get a fresh cup of coffee before I got down to the serious business of trying to look fresh and youthful on my birthday, so stepping out into the hallway I saw a blur of polka dots jumping out in front of me. As she landed, Kate got off three well placed shots with her water gun. Two shots landed dripping into my half done hair and one shot splashed directly in my face.

I grabbed the offending weapon from the offending child and threw it down the hall and into our bedroom, nearly hitting my man on his bulb-shy head. "KAAAAAATE, you can't shoot your gun on Sunday mornings!!!!!!"

Many, many times in the last month we've shouted similar phrases at our Kate. She seems to know the exact moments when her guerrilla water gun attacks will have the greatest potential for disaster.

Sensing that I was not going to be ready in time for Sunday School, my Man piled the baby, the blondie, the boy, and the sniper into the van and wisked them off to church leaving in their wake a peace that endured--for about 40 minutes! Happy Birthday to me!