Incognito is Neato

Every year I take time from work on the girls' birthdays. They play hooky from school and we tear up the town. It is literally a desperate attempt to fit a huge amount of crazy-type fun into one day.

I notice that they have a heck of a lot more stamina than they used to.

Here is a brief synopsis of Maya's 9th birthday, March 7, 2006 (otherwise known as the "Oh My God she is half of 18 and she may not ever want to be silly with her Mom after this and next year she will have two digits in her age" birthday).......


When playing hooky, be ready with aliases and disguises. I was Rose Bush (no relation to the president, thank goodness) Sophie was Daisy Chain and Maya was Lily Valley (middle name "of the"). These were successful aliases/disguises because, well, we didn't get caught now, did we?

Maya chose "Odyssey 1" as her first destination. It is an indoor play park (tubes, unsanitary ball pits, video games, laser tag....) The girls did not even hit the video games or laser tag. The spent THREE HOURS playing in the tube part of the park. THREE HOURS. The deal has always been that I am just along for the ride and it is the birthday girls day, plain and simple. They are obviously testing me.

This is what happened to Sophie the minute she got in the car.

We obviously needed nourishment, so Maya opted for the ever-nutritional ice cream lunch.

Then we saw a pretty tree and stopped the car to take a picture.

Then it was off to our favorite park. This is them making fun of me because I can't catch them.

I hate them. And their ice cream induced hyperactivity.

Another cool tree.

Me on the swings. Do you know how hard it is to take pictures from a swing? Notice the interesting perspective including me, Maya, the storm clouds and the Minty Squirrel. It says....something, I'm sure, about us.

It started to rain and rain and rain. On the drive home we noticed the daffodils had chosen her birthday to begin blooming. Ta-dah!

And later that evening, we ate the official birthday lemon meringue pie. Candles do not stand up in meringue very well.

Just so you know.