A Perfect Ten

The birthday party weekend extravaganza was a rousing success. The sleepover went well, I only had to get all "what in the wide wide world of sports are you doing down there?" just once. When I'm yanked out of a sound sleep at 1:30 am to the dulcet tones of screaming girls and slamming doors, I get a bit testy.

The Krispy Kreme cake was a hit. And, no baking! Bonus! And you can eat leftovers for breakfast and no one will judge! Double bonus!

On Sunday, her actual birthday, we went to Shogun in Fairview Heights for dinner. This is the kind of restaurant where the chefs flip knives and spatulas with death-defying skill, and the food is sliced, diced, julienned, and cooked in front of you. The food was fantastic, I highly recommend it. Our chef was a lot of fun, and had some great tricks. However, after trying twice to flip an egg into his hat and failing, he settled for flipping it into his pocket. He also flipped broccoli into Maddy's mouth. Apparently I'm going to have to learn this trick to get her to eat vegetables.

I told the hostess it was her birthday, so she received a seranade in Japanese as well as a piece of cheesecake, a headband, and chopsticks. She asked if she should eat the cheesecake with chopsticks and I suggested she go ahead and be American and use a fork.

I think her favorite present actually came on Monday, after her birthday. Craig and I spent days searching the web and even had several people throughout the metro-East searching stores for Rock Band, to no avail. We finally decided maybe Wii Fit would be easier to find, and also more fun for her, and something that we would all use more often. Of course, after we made that decision, Wii Fit was nowhere to be found. Craig found one on Wal-Mart's website on Thursday, and it arrived today. And there was much rejoicing.

We had a great time Monday night challenging each other on the various games. I rocked at the hula-hoop game, spinning three hoops at once and racking up 150 spins. That game kicks my hiney, but it's a lot of fun. Also, as someone who can't hula-hoop in real life, it's nice to be good at it in the virtual world.

My baby is 10. Happy birthday, Maddy. Here's to many, many more!