That was a good party.

As little J, with his brand new hair cut, drifted off to sleep tonight he muttered those words to himself and then quietly recapped the day.

"That was a good party. I got my hair cut like Daddy's. I got some toys. I got some candy. My hair's not long anymore. It's short."

Turning three involves a hair cut and a little ceremony for Jewish boys. And he was SO GOOD. Everyone was afraid that he would be scared of the haircut since he is scared of getting his nose cleaned, he cries when you brush his teeth too long and he shies away from new experiences in general.

But he was excited for it and when he and his parents snuck up to the master bathroom with the haridresser after the ceremony, he was so quiet and sneaky and happy to go that no one knew where they had gone. Just as we had planned.

T ordered the pizza to arrive at exactly the moment that they ran upstairs to hide and cut his hair without the interference of all the hands-on grandparents. And at that very moment, the baby woke up from his early nap and I had to run around and do a hundred things AT THAT MOMENT, so I couldn't even stop to lie to the grandparents about where T was. Which was the goal. Not having to tell them or lie.

The party was wonderful. The kids had a great time. I looked adorable and several people told me so, including hot Dr. M. All the bitties love me and tell me how good I am with the kids and Mom E even redeemed herself.

Near the end of the party when only a handful of people were left we were sitting around in the living room trying to squeeze in a few more calories before we exploded and Mom E came, kissed me on both cheeks like family and gave me a present for being so good to the chidren. She thanked me for taking care of her babies and told me she hoped I always stay. HOW NICE IS THAT?

The sweat suit she gave me is truly awful, but her actions just reenforce what I already know about her and make her much easier to tolerate. She means good in all her nagging. She is not trying to annoy me. She is a very, very sweet woman and very caring. And even though she tries my patience, I need to think nicer thoughts about her.

When the party was over the three of us who live here started tackling the mess. My first goal was t get every scrap and remnant of food out of the basement so as to not attract any critters. When that was over, we tackled all the food and I started washing things while T got the kids ready for bed.

E came into the kitchen with half a bottle of champagne that was missing a cork. It had my name all over it.

So I tackled the champagne while I washed the crystal and the Tiffany platters and the china. I don't know if T was nervous about that, but I guess not very because she yelled, "drink one for me!" as she ran through the kitchen on their way out the door.

After all this, they had to go to a memorial service tonight. They stayed to help with clean up so long that they were an hour late for it and when they got home and the kitchen was clean and the champagne bottle was empty T started laughing at me.

"Are you drunk?!"

I don't think I am but I'm so tired, who can tell? I can still type pretty quickly and I didn't break any of the highly breakables so I think I'm in pretty good shape. Still, it's a long, hard trek from here to my room, to the shower and to bed.

Maybe I'll just sit here and sleep it all off.