Happy birthday to my superhero. You're five. Really? REALLY?

Today is zj's fifth birthday.  I was all prepared to write a post about how much I love him and how much he's grown and maybe pull out a bunch of old baby pictures and sob hysterically as I thought of my baby boy growing up so fast, but then I remembered that I did that last year.

Well, then.

On to plan B.

We gave zj some choices about what he wanted to do on his birthday.  Just for the record, none of them contained an actual party, because as I have mentioned before, children's birthday parties make me want to drink gin straight from the cat dish.  His decision was quick and decisive.  We would go to Chuck E. Cheese and we would go ice skating.

Umm...  Ok?  I guess I'll have to drink a lot before we even leave the house I'll have to suck it up.  His birthday, his choice.

Here are some highlights of the day:

8am - Presentation of the birthday gifts.  Zj proclaimed the bathroom "the most awesomest thing he'd ever seen."

11am - Ice skating.  I can't skate.  Zj can't skate.  There was a lot of falling down.  There was a fair amount of "Are we done yet?"  I didn't think to bring gloves.  I feel certain that this is one of those memories that will be better after a fair amount of time has passed.  Ya know, kinda like having kids.  In six months, I'm sure we will remember how much fun it was and want to try again.  Or not.

12:30pm - Chuck E. Cheese.  Oh dear Lord.  Deliver me from large rat-like creatures bearing tokens and crappy pizza.  As I have mentioned before, this place is only suitable for the young and/or intoxicated.  Unfortunately, once again, I was neither.  Moving on...

2:30 pm - Build-A-Bear Workshop.  This photo sucks because by this time I had lost the will to live was getting tired.  Zj chose a dog for himself and a monkey to take home to cj, who spent the day at the sitter's the lucky little bastard.  And $60 later...

3:30pm - Barnes & Noble, because I joined their Kid's Club and had a coupon for a free cupcake.  I got to get a very large cup of coffee, too, but it was all for zj.  Really, it was a sacrifice.

4:30pm - Toys R Us.  Clearly, I have a death wish.  Zj was told he could choose one toy.  He immediately went to this one, which until now, I had successfully avoided buying for the past TWO YEARS, mainly because a) it's exorbitantly priced silly string and b) it's exorbitantly priced silly string.  How would not be swayed, even when offered a Kung Zhu thing, which I he wants desperately and which I have also managed to avoid buying.  So, in the bag it went.  For the record, three hours later, we were $14 of silly string down and my left eye wouldn't stop twitching because of the crap hanging off every available surface.

6pm - Zj declared this "the bestest day of his whole entire life, forever and ever" and promptly crashed.  

Next year, I'm just going to have a &#($ party and be done with it.