So if you'll remember back 7 and 4 years...I'm cursed in the first birthday department. Seven years ago, my refrigerator broke just days before the big birthday bash. I couldn't prep any food and what I had bought already, needed to be chilled with coolers and dry ice. Plus it was my first attempt at an awesome first birthday cake...if I do say so myself.
Then four years ago, we were living with my in-laws for Freddie's big day. I can't remember exactly what happened, but some pipe broke or detached or something and the water had to be shut off and an emergency plumber called. I was making mulit-colored monster cupcakes and what I do remember is a sink overflowing with blue, orange, and purple icing and everything that goes with cake decorating just moments before guests arrived.
For this, our final first birthday, I decided to make it a bit easier. I pulled way back on food. We rented a pavilion at a park. I didn't decorate. And though the cake looked complicated, it really wasn't. I didn't have to color a bunch of icing and it was really just a slight modification to the ladybug cake.
Voila...the puppy cake...
Pretty cute, I think.
On Friday afternoon, it seemed the curse had been broken. All my kids were away at school or daycare. The house was clean - even the sink was empty. The cakes were baked and all the food was prepped and cold in a working refrigerator. When my mom and sister and everyone arrived home from the sights in Washington, DC, I was chopping the final vegetables and ready to drink a beer.
Carolyn walked in first...
"What's wrong with your eye," I asked.
"I got something in it."
Ainsley came in next, followed by my mom.
"She's been itching her head all day," my mom said.
I checked her head for the millionth time that week, knowing we had gotten yet another lice notice from the school.
That night, my sister's husband also had a red eye and I said "Are you sure you guys don't have pink eye?"
The walk-in clinic confirmed the pink eye Saturday morning.
I found lice on Ainsley Monday night.
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| I had to add this picture, because this could have been the site of the lice transfer to me. Our experts that came and cleaned our heads for us say that you need head to head contact in order for the lice to transfer. So here I am with my lice-ridden daughter the day before I found them...head to head. |
The party went off without a hitch, except I forgot all condiments, but that's a small obstacle in the face of conjunctivitis and nits.
So I'm not sure if the curse is broken or not. But the party was fun, as they always are, and we deal with the issues (and in this case, the laundry) after. And now my baby is walking and babbling and laughing and loving all the foods he gets to eat. Not so much a baby, but still so very cute and so very sweet and cuddly. So I'd say curse or no curse, it was all a success. Just probably a good idea that we don't have any more first birthday parties, less someone looses a limb or something.
