Ice, Ice, Baby

Once again, Heath and I were moments away from leaving a friend's birthday party with my mommy dignity in tact, when WHAM! A police car in Heath's hand makes contact with a fellow playmate's face. Good grief. Just when I thought I had learned my lesson in the value of an early exit. And I knew I was pushing my luck when I heard it was minutes away from noon, and we'd been there for an hour and a half without incident.

I'm finding it a little easier to recover from such moments. It used to be unbearable, now it just stings with an annoying embarrassment. There's just something about it when these things happen with Heath, they feel so personal. Like I just must be doing something wrong. Some sort inept thing in me as a mom. Maybe it's because he's my first. Maybe it's because he's a boy. Maybe it's because I'm a neurotic freak. I don't know. I know I don't feel it with Stella. Her cries, whines, meltdowns and dissatisfactions don't hit me the way that Heath's do. With her, when she goes boneless at the Blockbuster and starts to scream bloodymurder because I won't let her rearrange the New Release wall, I don't think, Man, what am I doing wrong? What can I do to stop this? Oh no, everyone is looking. I see it for what it is, growing pains of a 16 month old, and I am ruining her good time. But with Heath, that's not my natural instinct.

When we woke up this morning and saw the condition of the weather outside, we weren't even sure that the party was going to happen. It was also going to be a two birthday party day. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. A scenario that I was a little nervous about. An overwhelmed and overstimulated Heath is tricky. The afternoon party was cancelled, but we were on for the morning at Noah's Art.

When there's talk of ice on the road, I don't drive. Mark helped me coat-up and load-up the kiddies into the car and headed out into the sleety-icy-slush. The party was great. The kids made spaceship hats. Heath kept calling them space alium hats. They painted pictures of rocketships and made robots. When Mark and Stella picked us up, Heath let Stella carry the red balloon party gift. I could barely pry it from her hands so she could eat her lunch and take her nap. I eventually had to tie it to her jacket so it wouldn't get away.

After a morning of playing in the snow, Heath was already pink-cheeked and sleepy looking while we were on our way to the party, so I thought a late-morning birthday celebration and rocketship art would surely be the ticket to a lovely, lazy Saturday nap. Sure enough, the little bear fell asleep. It was only 45 minutes, but after the week we've had, I'll take it.

After our short, but cozy nap, we got back outside to do some sledding like I used to do when I was little--on a baking cookie sheet. It's slick, it's fast, and on our decent hill of a backyard, it's downright daredevilish. Heath and Mark loved it. The more Heath slid off and rolled around, the more it thrilled him. Just when I thought he surely hurt himself, he would quickly recover and jump back on for one more turn. Stella, who does not own appropriate winter shoes, stood frozen in her wet Robeez, her red balloon waving in the chilly wind.

We braved the even icier roads and got a movie and Thai food. I picked out Motherhood with Uma Thurman and Anthony Edwards. It was a hasty, not well-thoughtout decision at all. I thought it might be light and breezily funny. Now I'm afraid it might just be not good.

My Tom Yum soup and Pad Kee Mao, now, that was good.