I've got a party dress

Look at me! I'm the big 3-3! (Did I miss my calling as a greeting card writer?)

Yes, here we are again at my birthday. I love my birthday. People are so nice. Things are (often) free*. And now I've got the added bonus of being able to reflect on my 40 by 40 list and see what I've accomplished and what I've got left to do.

So...here's what I've done:

4. Visit Hawaii

12. Learn to decorate a cake
23. Finish scrapbooking my boys’ childhoods (at least through age 5)
26. Visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum
40. Join the bone marrow registry

That's not shabby, really. Two required travel and one required a four-week class. Joining the bone barrow registry is quite possibly the easiest item on the list. (So easy that perhaps you'd like to join, too?)

I guess I don't really need to go into detail about any of them here since I've so conveniently already blogged about them, but man, Hawaii was awesome. And there was so much laughter on that trip to Cleveland. And the cake decorating was pretty fun, too.

Thanks go to all who accompanied me on these journeys: my family, of course, and Greta and Rachel and Amy and Gerra. And Cecilia, whose battle with leukemia got me to follow through with my first list item (ironically #40), and who has come through the tunnel and is back in good (and getting better) health.

It's been a good year. Not without its ups and downs, mind you, but good.

So what's on the docket for this year? Do I dare commit to which list items I'm going to tackle in the next 12 months? The planner part of my brain would really like me to - especially knowing that 11 of the remaining list items require travel. We're not necessarily talking about 11 separate trips, though, I'm working on ways to creatively combine them...A two-week European cruise with a side trip to Paris during which I get a tattoo and send all of my friends postcards telling them what they mean to me?

Anyway, I want to try to achieve a good balance of ones that require a lot of effort and/or money with some that don't so I don't end up at age 39 with five international trips to take. (Gee, now that I've said it out loud that doesn't sound so terrible.)

In fact, if you've got any creative (in a realistic way) suggestions on how to get more bang for my life goal buck, please let me know.

Since it's my birthday, I'm reserving the right not to think too hard about this today, but I promise to update as I decide which list items I'm going after this year.

Cupcakes and fruity drinks for all.

*Unless you go to Starbucks, where they tell people they get a free drink on their birthday, only to disappoint them by requiring a coupon that they are apparently too backlogged to send in time for said birthdays.

Geminis are We

It's June! Birthday month at our house. Yes, everyone living in our house celebrates their birthday this month. The boys and I celebrate back-to-back, which I have to say, for one who loves to celebrate her birthday, is not ideal, but I still make sure my day gets a little love.

I'll save my reflections on how exactly it could be possible that my babies are turning SEVEN until that big day arrives. For now, I'll just tell you that in addition to having my own birthday to get excited about, I've got 16 children coming to my house on Saturday. 16. Plus my two. Why the hell would I invite 16 children to my house? I guess I really like those boys. And, well, I've never been very good at editing invite lists. Probably no one was more surprised than I when we managed to come up with more than 100 people to invite to our wedding.

For the record, I lobbied hard for the non-party, in which each kid invites one, nice, manageable friend to go play minigolf and go out to dinner. Apparently I'm about 10 years early with that idea...oh well. At least it's not a slumber party, right?

(Btw, let's all take a moment to praise antibiotics. If I ever tell you I've had a sinus infection for three weeks without medical attention, please remind me how much better life is when I am healthy. Thanks much.)

Determination and snot

Does warm weather in Minnesota always come with illness? I mean, it's no wonder we'd get sick with it going from 50 to 90 in approximately four seconds, but I guess I always block out the getting sick part of summer starting...

Anyway, I'm feeling a bit hermit-like. It's enough that I work from home, but add in Aidan being home sick for a couple days and I just haven't really been outside much. I love the new job, but if this is what it's like in warm, sunny weather, I'm a teensy bit worried that once the snow falls, I will stop leaving my bed. Or maybe that's just the constant sinus pressure talking.

Now, I know I can't mention my sinuses without someone suggesting a neti pot, so neti pot enthusiasts, listen up: I've decided to give the damn thing another try.

The thing is, it doesn't work. Sure, it's uncomfortable and makes me feel a bit like I'm drowning - as I assume pouring salt water into your head would - but the main issue I'm having is that the water never emerges from the other side of my nasal cavity, thus failing to take the nastiness with it. All that salt water is probably still sloshing around in there as I type this.

But, unlike previous forays into neti-land, I'm not giving up this time. I am determined to experience the magic of the neti pot for myself. I've watched the instructional video. I've read the ringing endorsements. I am ready to be convinced. Then again, my attention span is short, so let's hope the thing impresses me soon.

No Thanks

I feel like over the past four years since Owen's diagnosis, I've gone through the fear and anger and all the standard emotions, and I've arrived at a place where it's just part of our lives and usually it doesn't bother me that much. I don't curse autism daily for making my baby's life harder than it needs to be. He's healthy and happy and we're lucky for that.

So I was a little caught off guard this week when we got called into a meeting where the school informed us that even though Owen is smart - really, really smart - they think that his difficulty with expressing himself through writing (and the subsequent meltdowns it causes) will pose too much of a challenge for him to enter into the gifted program next year.

The truth is that we had the same reservations and hadn't even submitted his application to the program until we got his phenomenal test scores back. And yet...having the school tell me that put me on the defensive. It's not fair. His amazing mind is in there working away, but he just can't write a paragraph about it. (Well, he maybe could, but it's hard enough that he doesn't want to and will tell you so.)

And it made me mad, like something was being taken away from him. Like autism is taking something away from him. And I haven't felt that way for a long time.

And then I felt a little bit greedy because I know how lucky we are. Like the me from four years would be telling me to be grateful because it could be so much worse. I should be happy that he is doing so well. I should be happy that we're even talking about the gifted program. And I am.

But should I really feel grateful? Grateful that this mysterious disorder hasn't taken more from him? Like it's some penance and he's getting off easy? No.

I've come a long way, but I'm not ready to thank autism for anything.

I ♥ Las Vegas

I don't know whether any of you have really been missing it, but I owe you a blog about my trip to Vegas. So here goes...

It was SO fun! I'd like to try to convince myself that it was actually more fun because I waited more than a year between visits, but I know full well that my brain is impervious to such logic. Every time I go to Vegas, I begin planning my next trip to Vegas - that's just the way it is.

This trip was a bit different for me in that it was warm enough to go to the pool (for Vegas, that means 80's) and we didn't eat a single fancy dinner. The fanciest we got was Todd English P.U.B. in the new CityCenter complex, which was good, but overpriced. BLT Burger, in the Mirage, was a much better value - plus, they have a shake called The All-Nighter that involves espresso and Bailey's (YUM!).

Truth be told, we were supposed to eat at Mario Batali's B&B Ristorante one night, but we ended up canceling our reservation because I had declared it to be "Everything fun day," during which we could only do fun things, and we were having too much fun in the dive casinos on the Strip to leave (mostly Casino Royale, which wins for most deceiving name). They had $1 margaritas. That was a good day.

The best part of the trip was spending time with some of our fabulous friends, who we don't get to see nearly often enough. Plus, I got to see one of my college friends who I hadn't seen for (this kills me) nearly a decade. And we saw LOVE, which I think must be just as amazing the 700th time you see it as it is the first (this was my second). AND I discovered a new favorite slot machine, Invaders from the Planet Moolah (They're cows, get it? And they moo in the most delightful ways!). AND I got to play the Monopoly Tycoon Bonus several times, which is always a good thing.

Oh Vegas, I keep thinking you will start to lose your luster one of these times...but it seems that we have a love made to last.

Baby, I'm Amazed

At the risk of being totally annoying and bragging about how smart my kids are, I wanted to share this image.

It's the math assessment Owen brought home the other day. You can see that he was supposed to write the fraction for each part of the hexagon, which was divided into thirds by the dotted line.

He got it wrong, writing 1/6, when the answer was 1/3.

His teacher noted: "1/3 but I can see how he thought of it as a 3D shape - so I didn't count as wrong."

He got it wrong because he assumed it was a 3D drawing of a cube and indicated that each side would therefore be 1/6 of its surface area. I'm pretty sure they don't teach that in first grade.

When I went into full-blown labor at 26 weeks 5 days gestation, the nurse in the antepartum ward -- seeing how frantic I became when told that I would be delivering that morning -- told me that her neighbor had her daughter early, too, and now that kid was grown up and graduating from high school. "And that kid is smart!" she insisted, presumably to reassure me that my preemies weren't doomed to fail in life (had I been in my right mind, I might have explained that my children's future intelligence was not my most pressing concern at that moment).

So when I get these little demonstrations of how smart they really are - added to the fact that their recent standardized test scores indicate that they're not just smart, but good test takers, to boot - it makes me more than proud. It amazes me. They amaze me. And I am so excited about where those big brains will take them.

Let it Ride

As if life wasn't already on an upswing, I am headed out to the land where bartenders get up and dance on the bar...even if it's only 10:30 in the morning. And I sit, watching the routine, wondering aloud whether she is a dancer forced to bartend, or a bartender forced to dance.

Yes, yes, I'm going back to Vegas! And can you believe that it's been more than a year? I can't.

The last few times I've visited, I think I was looking forward to an escape from my everyday because my everyday was fluctuating between mildly depressing and soul-crushing. But not anymore! (Thank you, new job and husband who is not gone all the time.)

And really, what better way to celebrate the good fortune in our lives at the moment? Perhaps it will carry over on the casino floor.

So off I go, to play some Monopoly slots (and Price is Right...and Deal or No Deal...and maybe some Wheel of Fortune), and sit by the pool, and just generally eat, drink and be merry. Expect a full report next week. Viva!