Thank goodness I cut their nails this morning

What was that Chapters-esque smell up here in the attic? It was coming from the new portable air conditioner which was leaking water and soaking the carpet. Turns out Husband set it up incorrectly but he won't let me touch it. I didn't get a close look but it appears that he followed the instructions, but we still called in a technician to have a look. And since it's still under warranty, the wait will be two weeks!

Meanwhile, it just got blisteringly hot up here. The kids were just bummed because this is their playroom.

However, yesterday, Husband decided to celebrate my birthday early. He mistakenly bought a huge Dairy Queen cake, so he figured we may as well stretch it out a couple of days. We'd do the cake thing and then spend the afternoon out and about.

He set the table with my precious Fiestaware which Middle Child decided to play Old West Saloon with, sliding plates down our dining room table like shuffleboard disks. None of them broke because we caught him doing it just as one was precariously perched on the edge.

Daughter decided she was going to sing at the top of her lungs, despite our pleas for "normal voice." Worse off, she thinks she sounds good when she tries to sing operatic, which for Daughter, translates to some weird high-octave that doesn't even sound like her. Oh, and she was doing this while dancing.

And Baby Boy took all the birthday candles and started to bite them or snap them in half.

We managed to get the cake to the table, find an unbroken candle and light it. Baby Boy kept blowing it out. After the fifth match was blown out, we tried moving things around, but that, I guess, made the kids think they could get their keisters off the chairs and start chasing each other...

...which ended when two hands went into the side of the cake.

Birthday over.

Husband and I cleaned everything up. The cake is salvagable so we said we'd try again tomorrow. Daughter started to cry hysterically, "Give us one more chance." Nuh-uh, as we explained that we asked each one of them to settle down many times in that past few minutes, including a reminder that my top request on the birthday wish list I wrote was "well-behaved children". Anyway, Daughter flew into a rage and ran up to her room screaming, "I want cake! It's no fair!"

This crying of hers went on for about five minutes, when I finally went into her room and said, "You know what is most disappointing about your behaviour now? It's that you're not crying because I missed out on a nice moment with my family. You're crying because you didn't get sweets."

She shut up after that and came back downstairs where the boys just went on playing X-men meets Sharkboy. And I gathered up my stuff and went grocery shopping.

When I came back, their rooms were relatively clean, they were quietly watching a video together, and Husband was in the attic, put a huge bin under the portable air conditioner to catch the still leaking water, and had painted the bathroom ("Bermuda Pool", which I bought two weeks ago but never got around to the job).

Today is my actual birthday. We'll see what is in store. I'm not expecting much.