Birthday Fun

As many of you know, I had my birthday last Saturday. We had some fun experiences I thought I would share with you. To start off the day, I was challenged by my friend/almost sister Caroline that I needed to do something crazy that day or she would be very disappointed in me (never a good thing). She suggested that we go to DI and I wear the most hideous outfit we could find all day. Tempting... actually we almost did exactly that. My idea was to put on a Halloween costume and go trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, the crew I was hanging out with (Siena, Thad, Melissa and my mom) weren't really up for that.
Well, Melissa came over to my house and made a lovely crepe breakfast for me. That was definitely the best meal of the day! I was a little bummed I couldn't eat them with Nutella, though, because we found out a couple of weeks ago that Siena is allergic to dairy, and since I am breastfeeding, this means that I can't eat anything with dairy in it. But I gotta say, she is such a happy baby since we figured that out!
Well, for lunch, I decided we should go to McGrath's Fish House. We hadn't been there in a while (a couple of years), and I remember it being really good the last time I went. Well, I had been craving coconut shrimp for a long time, so I was excited to try it there. For $11, I got 4 small, rubbery shrimp. Yay. And french fries on the side (the waitress informed me that this was their only dairy-free side dish). There were vegetables on the side, so I tried the zucchini, thinking it would be the redeeming grace of my meal. As it turns out, I'm pretty sure the cook accidentally grabbed a bottle of pesticide instead of seasoning when preparing the veggies. I couldn't even get them down! And if you know me, you know I love my veggies! Melissa's pasta was drenched in butter, and my mom's cod-encrusted sole was soggy and tasted like it may have been last week's special. Thad's fish and chips were fine (honestly, how could how screw that one up?).
Well, when the waitress came by, I said, "I'm 29 today!" She said nothing. My mom said "She's ignoring you." I tried again. "Hey, guess what? Today's my birthday!" The waitress says "Oh, ok." and walks away. So I thought, 'well, I guess that's that.'
Meanwhile, Siena was getting fussy, so I decided to nurse her. There was hardly anyone in the restaurant, so I didn't even bother putting on my hooter hider (nursing cover). I was in the middle of nursing her when all of the waiters and waitresses gathered around me to sing Happy Birthday. You should have seen the look on the guys faces as I'm sitting there breastfeeding! You would think they would have asked if they could come back in a few minutes. No, they just stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do. I hastily threw on the hooter hider, and they put a huge fish on my head. I was wearing my sunglasses on top of my head, so the fish hat wasn't fitting right, and they kept pushing the hard fish hat down harder and harder, crushing my sunglasses into my skull, then sang Happy Birthday. Of course, they hadn't asked my what my name was, so they just kind of muttered that part... When they finally finished, our waitress presented ,e with my "dairy-free" dessert. She excitedly explained that the chef had created it especially for me. I asked her what it was, and she said, "chocolate with strawberries!" I said, "And it doesn't have dairy?" She grinned, "It shouldn't!" and merrily skipped away. I thought, 'when was the last time milk chocolate didn't have milk in it?! This must be some kind of breakthrough!'
So I tried it, and guess what? It was straight-up Hershey's chocolate syrup with those thawed, fermented strawberries you see at cheap all-you-can-eat buffets on top. Disgusting, but at least it was "dairy-free"! Anyway, the whole situation was pretty hilarious!
So after that, we went to DI (the local thrift store), to find hideous pajamas for my pajama part that night. I decided that if anyone came not wearing pajamas, they would have to wear some that we picked out for them. Melissa, my mom and I all tried on some pretty hideous pajamas (think mumus from the '70s). My mom got a picture on her camera, so I will try to get that and upload it later.
Meanwhile, I will still trying to think of something crazy to do (as if the whole breastfeeding incident at McGrath's weren't enough!), so I found a bike at DI and rode that around until I ran into a lady (the seat was too high, and I didn't have much control over the steering wheel), so I figured the pogo ball would be a safer bet, until I almost fell off of it. It was tricky jumping around on it because the place was so crowded. After that, every time I walked by these guys that saw me jumping on it, they pointed at me, and started talking and laughing. Nice.
After that, we dropped Thad odd at home, and we went to Costco to get food for the party that night. I nursed Siena in her sling the entire time walking around Costco (I was quite impressed with myself), and YES, I was wearing the hooter hider. We got balloons after that, where I backed up into a trailer in the parking lot and smashed out the guy's tail light.
The party was nice- just a few close friends hanging out. My friend Shauna from Cali even came, and I hadn't seen her for over a year! Then the weather picked up and stared pouring.
All in all, a pretty eventful and memorable day.