I are three, okay?

Davey can count to three. Isn't that great? When he turns eleven, I can only hope that he'll be wearing open toe sandals. Happy Birthday, by the way.

I only vaguely recollect my college years, but I do remember that it is not a party until someone streaks, you piss off the neighbors, or someone gets beheaded. Not one to disappoint when it comes to partying, I organized the package deal.

Today was only the party - David actually turned three on Tuesday. Since then, he has both pleased us with his newfound toilet capabilities and frustrated us with his insistent and rather annoying quirk to flush down a whole roll of toilet paper every time he has any nature-urge that might actually require toilet paper. I now live in constant fear that the kitchen sink will explode or the neighbors will find bits of Charmin floating in their next bath. This, of course, would surely make David laugh, kind of like how he laughs each time I scream 'DAMN IT, DAVID - STOP FLUSHING THE ENTIRE FREAKIN' ROLL OF TOILET PAPER DOWN THE TOILET!'

I tried to look on the bright side of pooping and laugh the whole thing off. It didn't work, but at least David got quite a chuckle out of the whole ordeal. Eventually, I chose the low road, also known as 'ignore the problem - it will go away on its own'.

Instead, I began filling water balloons for the BIG BIRTHDAY WATER BALLOON WAR! At one point, I mistakenly asked Angie for a tub for all of the filled water balloons. Davey often hears what he wants to and this time, his tiny little brain heard tub and water and immediately instructed him to get naked and run around the apartment like a madboy.

He finally understood that I said TUB and not BATHTUB, but this did little to get the three year old streaker clothed again. Whatever, it's his birthday - he might as well wear the suit.

Speaking of suits, did I ever tell you the hilarious story about how Clarice wanted to hold Tom? No? Well, there we were, sitting around a table witnessing kids lose their mind at a boggling rate. Tommy was the only sane and quiet one, if you can believe that. Even if you can't, shut up. It's my story.

So, Tommy was being all 'look at me, I'm cute, won't you please pick me up? I promise not to dump luke-warm coffee all over you.' Somehow, Clarice fell for the trap. At least her pants were white. Right on, Tommy!

Clarice was not the only one getting soaked. My brilliant idea of having water balloons was backfiring on me. Big time. At some point, Angie managed to convert my idea of the kids throwing balloons at each other in the garden into 'let's make Steve go down to the garden and we can try and peg his head from the balcony'. Oh, ok - thanks honey-thighs.

Missed me, missed me, know you have to...uh, why are the neighbors crying?

I can absolutely confirm that they were not tears of happiness. I guess our water bombs did not catapult as far as I had previously estimated. In short, the water bombs landed in gravel, which kicked up stones, mud, and emotions all over the nicely laid out blanket that was awaiting the visitors of the family below us. At one point, their little girl came running out shouting 'you're getting everything wet'. My sole, yet witty, response was 'yeah, they're WATER balloons'.

After mending a few broken fences and some MAJOR apologizing, we were ready to continue birthday-partying! Angie stayed behind to clean-up, but I saw this as already part of our 'arrangement'. I cook, she cleans. I destroy the neighbor's family picnic, she cleans. Thanks, sugar-lips.

I wasn't the only one pissing off others. We moved to the playground, where Elmo must have seriously angered Peter. In response, Peter did everything BUT tickle Elmo.

I am just damn lucky that our neighbors didn't have a pinata stick handy after the water balloon incident. As it was, I am sure they wanted to rip my head off. Hey, join the club.

Mark and I let the tiny ones fight over the loot as we did victory laps around the playground chanting 'ding-dong, the Muppet's dead' until some of the kids started crying. Pinatas are so freakin' awesome, man!

We decided to take the kids upstairs to cool off a bit. The birthday boy must have thought Chiara was cool enough to share his primo spot in the cooler.

I'm not upset that David did not invite me. Not at all. I am secure enough in my super-mega-coolness to overlook this social face-slap. I didn't care, not even a little. Whatever. Jerk. Bedtime!

David firmly stated that 'I are three, okay' and assumed that this weak argument would somehow convince me to let him stay up later. His statement was not grammatically incorrect, by the way. I am pretty sure that he was referring to his multiple personalities and trust me - there are more than three and none of them stayed up past bedtime. Hmm...maybe you should've been cooler to me? Happy Birthday, by the way.

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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When we did pinata.
David: When Dalia come here to my birthday.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When Chiara shoot at me with a water pistol, but there was very, very, very, very hot water.
David: When Chiara and Alessio not stay here.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To play with Mommy hide-n-seek and you and Davey.
David: When Peter play with me pirates.

Brain sucker starving

In the wild, you often hear of mothers eating their young, so you can imagine my concern when I walked in on the Zoo crew and found Angie trying to brainsuck the life out of the Birthday Boy. Luckily, Papa came to the rescue before Mama's power hickey could do any permanent damage.

Today was the warm-up version for David's birthday - his real party is this weekend. He has invited his entire school to the BIG BIRTHDAY PARTY, along with anyone who has inadvertently spoken to him in the last two weeks. Since it was a warm-up, we at least had to have some fire.

After blowing out the candles, Angie freaked out getting the boys ready. Why was she in such a hurry, you might ask. Let me answer your curious George with a flashback to the night before.

I came home from work and was immediately tackled by the animals, as per usual. Angie came in and started babbling about her day and how awesome I am, as per usual. I ignored these incessant ramblings, as per usual, until she mentioned something that really made me chuckle.

'I'm going to bake a Captain Sharky cake and some muffins for David's kindergarten class.'

'Ok, should I call the fire department now or wait until I smell smoke?'

As is often the case, Angie completely ignored wit and humor, even when it was slapping her upside the head. At least I got another chuckle.

About an hour later, Angie shuffled in wearing a long, red face that was spinkled with flour. For some strange reason, she actually admitted to me how she had emptied the contents of the muffin mix into a bowl, but somehow managed to follow the recipe that was written on the cake box. This of course meant that the muffins had a bit more eggs, oil and milk in them then they should have. I chuckled again.

About forty-five minutes later, Angie came prancing in and danced a victory lap around me, shouting something about being able to bake a cake and shoving fingers in my face while screaming 'Ha!' over and over. Whatever. No chuckling - mainly because there was absolutely nothing funny about Angie's 'in yo face' dance.

About thirty minutes later, I went to the kitchen; presumably for a beer, but yesterday was so long ago, I really don't remember. Anyway, I came across a cake sitting on our cutting board that looked like it had pretty much collapsed on itself.

From time to time, I like to dress up in silly clothes, smoke a pipe, and pretend that I am Sherlock Holmes, so I immediately started investigating. My first observation was rather simple and only confirmed my initial suspicion - yup, the cake had definitely caved in on itself. The question remained, though - why would a perfectly good Captain Sharky cake commit suicide?

Next, I moved my skilful eyes to the cake mix box, with a nice picture of a round flat cake that looked nothing like the masterpiece I was analyzing.

By simple geometrical elimination, I was able to deduce that the cake in front of me was not round. My trained eye then noticed a used pan in the sink. It was not a round, flat cake pan. No, it was a rather deep bread pan. Hmmm....intriguing. But there was still that pesky question of why the cake would just implode on itself.

It's elementary, my dear moron. A cake, baked in a deep bread pan would need to cook a tad bit longer than the same cake, baked in a shallow cake pan. You would also need to follow the cooking times and recipe written on the cake box and not those from the muffin box, but at least this slight oversight made a certain sexy and muscular Sherlock Holmes wannabe chuckle even harder.

Anyway, the cake cooled, but the middle was still liquid, thereby resulting in the unfortunate, but still freakin' hilarious collapsing of said cake. And, you guessed it - I chuckled yet again.

So jumping back from my rather lengthy flash, Angie was running around all panicky, trying to get the kids ready for school. I finally realized why the hell she was in such a hurry - Betty Crock-not still needed to go by a cake store and buy something edible for David's kindergarten party. I guess the half-baked muffin breadcake was too embarrassing for even Angie to show up with. In the end, I finally figured out that Chef Boyardummy was probably just brainsucking our children for any cooking brain cells they might have inherited from Papa. Elementary.
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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When Barbara read me that book.
David: When I make in the toilet kaka.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When I got that owa.
David: When Mama make my schnulli out 'cause I are a baby.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To go to Arman's.
David: To play 'hi, the shark is in the water'.

Wrinkles, wigs and weird women

Today was my birthday party, A.K.A. Wrinkle Party. Angie would be the weird woman in a wig that I mistakenly and perhaps too eagerly thought was a 70's disco stripper hired to boogie down with the birthday boy. I tried to explain to Angie that being confused for a stripper should be a compliment, but Afro-Mama wasn't buying it. Whatever...dance for me, Chia pet, dance!

The morning started out at the butt-crack of dawn with David screaming at the top of his lungs that he MAKE A POOPY NOW, OK?

Actually, it was more than ok. I am so freakin' loving David's newfound friendship with John that I scraped my lazy ass out of bed at six o'clock in the A.M. to put the seat down for Mr. Nodiapers. I have to say, I found it quite hilarious that David says 'bye bye, kaka' and waves as he flushes. I didn't laugh, though. Don't jinx it, man!

After many high fives and some moderate hand-washing, Papa cooked breakfast for the Zoo. Peter has recently shown an interest in the kitchen, so we grabbed his step ladder and I let him break open a few eggs. Luckily for me, Angie and I have an arrangement where I cook, she cleans. At one point, she tried to argue that she should not be responsible for cleaning up pieces of egg shell from the walls since technically it was Peter who made the mess. Nice try, Betty Crocker, but next time you should try your weak-ass negotiations AFTER I have served you your meal.

As Angie cleaned the kitchen walls, floor and ceiling, I grabbed Peter the Helper and Tommy Two Teeth and began setting up for the BBQ.

Tommy is either absolutely fascinated with Peter here or he cannot breath. Either way, at least he was quiet while I put together the picnic tables and benches. The party really started when the Ice-man showed up with the necessary tools for making warm beer cold.

After an hour, Eisi and I began testing out if the ice was actually working. It was, but I believe in being quite thorough when it comes to testing. After our third exam, Eisi broke out his theater wigs that apparently make weird looking kids look even weirder.

Dalia stuck her tongue out, which was cute and funny. Our boys then tried the same and I would say that freaky and disturbing might better describe them.

Bizarreness must be contagious. Pretty soon, all the kids wanted to throw on dead hair and show off their goofy side.

The adults were revolted by how silly and immature the kids were being and immediately began downing barrels of wine to show how mature they were.

I guess it only takes a few glasses of grape juice for the ladies to show how silly and immature they actually can be.

I have to say, with Angie it was no surprise - I know the sound of her wine. The other wigged weirdos took me by surprise, though.

Another surprise came when a Ferrari drove down our street. After sadly confirming that this was not a belated birthday gift, Angie and I chased the car down and got our pose on.

Because there were actually people still sitting in the car, Angie felt compelled to ask the driver if we could take a few photos [above, left]. He answered with 'go ahead, sure - you can even touch it if you want' [above, right]. I can only hope Mr. Conceited was talking about the car. I really think those things should be convertibles; how else are these guys with the big heads actually supposed to fit in them? Speaking of really desperate men, I reminded my private dancer that I never got my birthday jingle [above, middle].

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Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When David said 'gaga' and then he laughs.
David: When Peter bonked his head and that so funny I laugh.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When I tripped by the party.
David: When Peter cry 'cause he afraid of me.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To play swords.
David: To play with Peter pirates and I are a captain, ok?