Elliot’s birthday

Today was Elliot’s birthday – his first one as a Daddy. I’m sure I don’t ever say this often enough, but Elliot is a wonderful husband and father. He is absolutely one of the kindest people I know, and it is clear to everyone how much he adores Micah. We always manage to have fun together, and I am so glad to be sharing my life with him!

Unfortunately, I think today was a bit of a disappointment, though – it was an entirely underwhelming birthday. A lot of that was my fault – it has been crazy around here, so I did not plan anything really big or special for today. I was having a hard time coming up with a gift idea, so I finally just asked him what he wanted and told him I’ll order it later this week. I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of a good idea, and he always goes so far out for me, and I feel awful. I was toying with taking him out to dinner tonight just the three of us, but we decided to reschedule family dinner for my mom’s birthday (and Elliot’s) to tonight. So, we braved horrible rush hour traffic to meet my parents, Jen, Jeremy, Paige and Peyton halfway in Columbia at the Olive Garden. Fancy dinner, right? We needed a good family restaurant, so it really was perfect. Micah enjoyed breadsticks, pasta, minestrone soup and pizza. I love watching him eat real food! The girls were adorable, and we had a fun night.

I think Elliot also got a bit short-changed on the cake. I had grand intentions of making him a Bugs Bunny cake this year, but with my edible image printer broken, I just don’t seem to have the bandwidth to freehand the bunny. Since we were also sharing the celebration with my mom, Elliot didn’t even get his own cake – it was a joint cake with my mom! (I guess my mom was short-changed, too – she had to share the cake with Elliot!) I just made a very simple cake – a delicious chocolate truffle cake decorated simply with buttercream icing and chocolate icing. I made some pretty fondant stars on wire and had them spraying out from the cake. It tasted yummy.

In better news, we do have a fun night planned for date night – we are going to a nice Indian restaurant for dinner, and we’ll wander around for dessert and enjoy the beautiful weather. Perhaps we’ll also grab a movie if there is time. I did come up with one good idea that did not exactly pan out as I had hoped. We’ve been wanting to go eat at Volt (for those of you who are watching Top Chef, it is Bryan Voltaggio’s place), so I called and made reservations. Unfortunately, the first available Thursday night reservations were not until October 29, so I took those and plan to take Elliot to part two of his birthday celebration there. When I mentioned this to Elliot, he said he’d rather go in November and celebrate our anniversary there, so perhaps my fun birthday surprise will become an anniversary gift instead.

In Micah news, we have entered the world of diaper acrobatics. Trying to change Micah’s diaper is a major undertaking. He flips over, climbs up the walls, stands – pretty much anything to make diapering impossible. Half of the time, we diaper him while he is standing! The diapers are never on properly, and it is a constant struggle while he complains loudly and fights us. We’ve tried toys (for some reason, he seems to enjoy playing with the thermometer the most), but those no longer seem to be holding his interest. I think I’m ready for potty training!

So today was Elliot’s birthday! I took it easy most of the day . . . Frank has been a bit temperamental since we stopped the Indocin, and I have a feeling he may have a girlfriend Fiona lurking in there, too. I suspect they are fighting today, so I’ve been trying to give them some quiet time to work out their issues.

I’ve been having difficulty finding the “right” gift for Elliot this year. He has been wanting this USB external, self-charging hard drive to backup his computer, and I found a good deal on one on Amazon, so I’ve been thinking of ordering that. I decided to ask him to make sure it was the right thing – I hate ordering things to find out I didn’t get it quite right. So, when we sat down together, I told him what I wanted to get him and asked him if I had the right thing with the right specifications. He is currently on the fence with that gift – I was going to order him a 320 GB drive, and he kind of wants the 500 GB drive, but that is a bit more money than I wanted to spend right now (since my “real” present is the other gift I’m about to discuss). I’m still waiting for a decision from him on the backup drive. Perhaps I’ll save that and buy it for him for another holiday . . . . maybe Chanukah!

The 2nd present is a joint gift from my parents as well. Elliot desperately needs a new grill. He doesn’t actually realize it, but his old grill died. The grates have rotted through, there are layers of scum (and now cigarette butts from the contractors) and just flat out poisonous decay, and I firmly believe it is too dangerous to ever fire that grill up again. The problem is, he truly loves his grill, and like everything else in his world, he hates parting with anything. Part of him sincerely believes that he will be using that grill again. I’m sorry to say, he isn’t going to win this battle. So, I did some investigating, and I identified what I think is the “perfect” grill for Elliot. But, again, I know how much his grill means to him, so I decided to let him select his next grill instead of dictating which one I thought was best for him. It turns out, he really liked the one I picked out and showed him online! There is one other one I saw, and he is trying to decide between the two. He asked me for a few days so he could go see them in person and decide which one he likes best, and if he finds something else he likes even better, then I will get that for him. There is one we saw that is really cool, but super-expensive. It looks kind of like a built-in grill – it comes complete with a stone facade workspace! I’m willing to spend the money, but Elliot won’t let me . . . he thinks it is cool, but not worth the money. We’ll see . . . perhaps I’ll buy that one anyway.

So, we’ve been trying to figure out how to celebrate Elliot’s birthday for weeks now. We had hoped to be all moved into the house and invite a bunch of people over for a bbq dinner in our Sukkah. Needless to say . . . we haven’t moved, we have no Sukkah this year . . . and so we didn’t have a party. Elliot was extremely disappointed – he just loves to have everyone over for his birthday dinner in the Sukkah. Once we realized the Sukkah party was out, we discussed other options. We talked about going out for a nice dinner somewhere, but Elliot has been crazy busy with work and running around, and hasn’t really been in the mood to go out for dinner at night, and Frank has been making my life difficult, so I get nervous planning anything specific since I never know how I will feel from one minute to the next.

After much discussion, we decided that I would make Elliot a nice dinner at home. We didn’t get the place cleaned up enough to set the broken dining room table for a romantic dinner by candlelight, but I was doing well enough to cook for him, and we sat together on the couch and ate dinner. I decided to make Chicken Marsala (well, a vegetarian version of Chicken Marsala with veggie Chicken), rice pilaf, and broccoli. For dessert, we had chocolate lava cakes and a side of ice cream. I didn’t have the energy to cook up a full cake yet (I’ve been fighting a cold all day, probably thanks to our friend Greg who was sick at the Sukkah party last night). I’m hoping to bake a cake for him for Wednesday night when we go out to dinner with my parents to celebrate his birthday.

Unfortunately, just as Elliot got home and we were preparing to have his birthday dinner, our contractor, Keith, called. He was extremely pissed off, and we ended up fighting with him on the phone for 45 minutes. Long story short, he works with my cousin, and I finally contacted my cousin about all the problems we’ve been having. He must have ripped our Keith a new one, because he was PISSED. He tried to tell us that all of the problems with the house were our fault, not his (because clearly, we are responsible for mis-measuring and mis-ordering). It was a HORRIBLE conversation . . . and I certainly did not need to get that worked up or upset. Frank was quite unhappy for the rest of the evening, but at least Elliot & I got to have a nice dinner together. Too bad Keith ruined Elliot’s birthday :(.

Happy Birthday, Elliot!

Time to celebrate!