Thank Goodness Birthdays Only Come Once a Year

Newsletter 2018-05-21

It was quite a week. Three of my kids inconsiderately aged (or almost aged) by a year, and we had to celebrate the occasion. We spent three days cleaning the house to get ready. Then thirty people came over. By the time they left, our house looked like it was hit by a tornado in the middle of an earthquake. Next year, I’m just going to pre-destroy our house so it won’t look any worse when people leave. Or maybe I’ll just forbid my kids from getting any older. That sounds much easier.

As if the damage wasn’t bad enough, my kids received several new tools of destruction as gifts. They got Nerf guns that can almost put a dart through drywall and Super Soakers that can peel paint off the deck. But deadliest of all was the karaoke microphone gifted to my kids by a relative who hates me. Just what I always wanted: a louder preschooler.

To accommodate all these gifts and the people who brought them, I had to bring up the extra chairs from the basement. The chairs used to be in the attic, but s…