Happy Cinco De Mother’s Birthday

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” The immortal words of Ferris Bueller ring true even more so now than they did when I first heard them in 1986. Its funny how daily activities can just pile up on you when you least expect it, and when these activities pile up, they can drop you like a ton of bricks. Last week was one of these times when life kicked me in the pants and told me to slow down.

Thursday marked the celebration of Cinco de Mayo in which my family takes pretty seriously. Ok not really seriously but we do make an effort to at least have some margaritas, go to a restaurant or friend’s house, and celebrate. Also our kids have been learning about it at school and its kind of like another Halloween for them where they can be socially acceptable in a sombrero. We celebrated with my wife’s sister and family at their house. Really quick I don’t want to paint their house as a rodeo or anything, but we have 2 kids & they have 4. So,  any situation with more than 2 kids is, in my eyes, chaotic (rude awakening coming for me in October). So to cope with the inflated craziness of having more children around we celebrated our non-existent Mexican heritage and I ate too much food & probably had a few too many Margaritas..... and white wine. Nothing where I couldn’t get up in the morning but enough to make 6am feel like 4am.

Fast forward to Saturday morning and we are celebrating my youngest daughter’s 3^rd birthday with 17 of her closest friends . Please defer to my ruling on groups of children totaling more than 2. It made my sister in law’s house look like the library. It was madness. Lots of donuts, juice, and coffee everywhere. I was contemplating doubling up on my prescription mood enhancing drugs for the event, but opted not to. I will say that morning parties are waaay better than evening parties when it comes to kid parties. We were cleaned up and all over by 11:30am and had the rest of the day to rest. Not really we had to get ready for Saturday night. Saturday night we went out with a group of friends as we had some folks in from Belgium that we wouldn’t get to see for awhile. So yet again a day of party food and a night of lots of dinner food, and booze.

[caption id="attachment_492" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Protecting my daughter's annonymity"][/caption]

Then we arrive on Sunday. Mother’s Day and my daughter’s actual birthday. Déjà vu all over again. It’s another big day for my wife’s family as we celebrate Mother’s day & 3 birthday parties at the same time. So we have yet again the perfect storm for crazy: more than 2 kids, lots of wonderful food, and a little bit of wine to finish it off.

At the end of Sunday I could tell that I was spent and even more so on Monday at work I was at 75% at best. So, why is it that we cram our events all together or is this just one of those “bad timing” things? I haven’t figured it out yet on either front. I am as social as they come and I do well in situations like these, but I just don’t have the reserves in the tank to keep it going for more than 1 day per week. Don't tell me that I am just getting old and all that because I am probably in better shape now than I have ever been. Also, am I the only one who doesn’t have a “Hey Dude Your Are Full” mechanism when I am at parties? I really think I consume 3 times as many calories via food when I have had 2 or more drinks. I know booze is supposed to inhibit your sensations etc but in all fairness to myself, my stomach just doesn’t feel full and there’s no warning light that comes on when I’ve hit my max. I need some help in this regard. So any advice that doesn’t involve drinking more or taking more medication so I’m not hungry would be appreciated. That's it. I am just trying to find some insight into why we (the royal we not just my family) put so much stuff upon ourselves.


Thanks for reading we've got more good stuff coming out on Friday.