Man ... tired now

What a day ... it was Daughter #2's 3rd birthday ... and The Wife had taken a day off for it. I ended up taking both girls with me when I went to drop Daughter #1 off at school (when it was bitterly cold this morning), it took us forever to get a bus up to #2's school ... once she was depostied I had to head back here, collect The Wife and the "goodie bags", go over to White Hen to pick up the 18 purple balloons we'd ordered, go over to Jewel to get the "Bob The Builder" cupcakes, and walk all this stuff the better part of a mile through gale-force sub-zero winds (yeah, try to get 18 balloons into a taxi) back up to #2's school. We then did a little party for all the 2-3 year olds in her class and then collected her (along with one balloon and goodie bag) and headed down to my Mom's place. I don't know why my Mom was insisting that she wanted to have a separate birthday thing for #2 over there (The Wife figures that my Mom feels that she doesn't "get credit" for the presents she gives the kids unless they're presented separately), but we ended up having a little luncheon for her (my Mom even orderd in hot dogs and a small "Dora The Explorer" cake on #2's request) there. I'd been up a large chunk of the night getting a bike put together for #2 (for our traditional pre-dawn present unwrapping ritual), so it was soon naptime for BOTH #2 and me. I then had to get up to pick up #1 from school and go get batteries (somehow The Wife had neglected to see if we had power for any of the stuff #2 was getting) and pick up the "official" birthday cake (this one featuring Barney ... which, if you're keeping track, was the third cake event of the day!). We had my Mom, and our in-town nephew over for a little family party tonight featuring order-in Chinese food (again, at #2's request ... once we narrowed down "spicy rice" to being the Hunan Chicken with fried rice combo from our local delivery place!) where I ate myself into a stupor. Of course, I then had to deal with getting my Mom back down the block to her place (she had actually ordered a wheelchair van to come over since she didn't think her new support gal could get her over here!) while she was freaking out about the half inch of snow we'd gotten over the course of the evening.

Given the sheer quantity of activity today, I'm amazed that Daughter #2 didn't have a melt-down at any point, but she seemed to be pretty happy with all the proceedings. We're just hoping with her turning 3 that she'll be leaving the "terrible twos" behind!