Zoe's Big Birthday!!!

Insomnia, how I never miss you when you're blissfully away. But how familiar and almost comfortable you are whenever you come back.

Sigh. It's 3:44 a.m.

To be fair, I do know that whenever my routine is off (like when my best friend, Amy, and her daughter Gabby are in town for Zoe's birthday bash weekend - which is fabulous, but means life is a bit...hectic...right now), I have a very hard time sleeping, which is probably why I cling so hard to my routine, because I hate not sleeping. And now, for Zoe's birthday party, which is in approximately 7 hours and 15 minutes, I will look like I have two black eyes.

But tomorrow will be better, especially if I think to buy some Melatonin, which really helped me in London when said routine was completely shattered. (Charles, when you go out in the morning to get beer for the party, will you also see if you can find some Melatonin? It's an herbal supplement...it'll be in the pharmacy section of Publix...with the vitamins...k, thanks!)

Anyway, enough about sleep (or lack thereof). I am going to take these quiet minutes to write about Zoe's Big Birthday!! W00t!

She had such a fun, such a full, such an EXHAUSTING day! (Why is it, by the way, that all the most fun days are utterly exhausting? You never hear anyone say, "Wow, we had a great day, so much fun at the park and the beach...now let's go for a ten mile hike!" Instead it's typically, "Wow, we had a great day, so much fun at the park and the beach...and now...I cannot...move...zzzzzzzzzzzzzz..." But I digress...)

Zoe woke up on Thursday morning and came downstairs to find a display not-unlike a modest-Christmas. But instead of a tree, there was....a basketball goal! Hooray! She's been asking for one since Charles suggested she might possibly want one for her birthday. Anyway, it stood there, towering over our living room in its four-foot-tall glory, with other gifts arranged impressively around its base.

You'd have think Zoe got a million dollars, she was so excited about the basketball goal. Sweet. Good job, Charles.

Other gifts of note included a soccer goal from her Aunt Mary and an original painting of pretty things by her Uncle Jonathan. The gift that was thrown aside? Clothes...that I picked out...of course..but they are CUTE, DARNIT!!

Our longstanding (if you can call three years longstanding) birthday tradition has been to take the day off and take Zoe to the South Carolina Aquarium here in Charleston. This year, the tradition seemed to be failing, as earlier in the week, Zoe wanted to go to the beach instead. But on the morning of her birthday, when we asked what she wanted to do, the Aquarium won handily so we got cleaned up, watched a bit of Annie (a slightly more successful gift I selected), and headed out.

(I should mention here that we are having Major Improvements done to our yard this week and next, so mixed with in the "get cleaned up" part of the story was Zoe being TERRIFIED to go outside due to the Scary Workmen...)

The Aquarium was fantastic this year. We had to dodge school groups but managed to see things like: one of the otters showing off how close to the glass tank walls he could swim, so I could almost give Zoe an anatomy lesson; an escalator; super-big sharks with super-sharp-looking teeth, also swimming eerily close to the glass by our faces (those eyes....so creepy!); a scuba-diver in the big tank who waved at Zoe and tried to touch her hand through the glass. So cool.

Another longstanding tradition is that on her birthday we take Zoe to the gift shop and let her pick out anything she wants. In the past, this has led to our acquisition of a stuffed opossum (named Oliver) and a plastic, grabby iguana thingie that helps us get stuff from under Zoe's bed. This year, we came home with...wait for it....a rubber snake and a plastic red-eyed tree frog, "so they can play games," according to Zoe. "Games" seems to mean that the two creatures take turns pretending to eat one another...fun times indeed.

The rest of her birthday included going out to lunch (Triangle Char and Bar in West Ashley - mighty fun place, I must say!), no nap for Zoe, more yard work and Scary Workmen, and a lot of dirt in which to play. By the time my dad showed up for dinner, Zoe was one GIANT mess. By the time we sat down to dinner, her cute pigtails had flopped completely down, and instead of her pretty birthday dress, she was in comfy shorts and a t-shirt. Her eyes were dark from exhaustion. Her feet were brown with mud.

Charles took some pictures when she blew out the candles on her birthday cake. I haven't seen them yet, but I know they will be classics.

OK. Enough said. I may be ready to go back to sleep now. And if not, China Mieville is calling me to read...

'night, world!