As you know from my post early yesterday morning,

MacKenzie turned nine years old yesterday!

I told you last week that her birthday was last week,

because I had my weeks confused.

I woke up one morning, thinking it was a week later

and actually tried to show up at a meeting

that wasn’t, actually, being held.

Luckily for me, I hadn’t slept through a full week

and after nailing Juliana’s birthday last week,

I could easily concentrate on MacKenzie’s birthday this week!

– — –

As soon as I finished up with some work stuff yesterday,

I picked my Cleveland-based girls of the fab five up

and we, along with one of my college girls, Anna,

hit the interstate to Knoxville!

MacKenzie thought that just her dad and I

were taking her to dinner for her birthday,

so you can imagine how excited she was

to see her fab five counterparts!

MacKenzie had selected O’Charley’s for her birthday dinner,

likely because of the rolls.  What girl doesn’t love bread?

After we got settled, we went ahead and opened some gifts!

Each of the four non-birthday fab five got to pick out a gift for her,

and, of course, Anna and I had gifts, too.

She loved her presents!

The plan was to take the girls to see a movie after dinner,

but dinner ran way too long for that.

I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea,

and decided that, after dinner, we’d take the girls to the local puppy store.

You do remember the puppy store, don’t you?

It’s only one of my favorite place in the world…

cribs full of puppies, all waiting to be held… sigh.

The problem was that the puppy store closed

while we were still finishing dinner.

I slipped away from the table

and called the store three minutes before it closed.

I got the manager on the line and asked if they do birthday parties.

Shockingly, they don’t.

Even more shockingly, they don’t do them after the store closes, either.

I explained that I had five little girls with me

and that it was one of their birthdays

but he remained unimpressed.

I then offered a little encouragement in the form of a cash bribery

to let me bring the girls to the store after hours.

And, wouldn’t you know, suddenly the store offered

after-hours birthday parties — imagine that!

I honestly didn’t mind to bribe him;

it was worth it to see the girls’ faces

when they got to go into the store

after it was closed — it was just us!

As it so happened, yesterday morning was my appointment at the hospital

for some pre-tests for my big appointment at the hospital next week.

My white blood cell count has been too low,

so guess who got two shots of steroids yesterday?

I couldn’t safely transport four of the fab five

on a three hour round trip car ride,

so Anna, one of my college girls, signed on for the adventure.

Notice Anna’s expression in the above picture?

My favorite thing about my college girls and the fab five

is how deeply the fab five scare my college girls

away from having children one day.

You think I’m joking, but one day we should let them do a guest post

of their own adventures helping me corral the fabulous five.

As recently as this last weekend,

three of them — Anna, Stephanie and Chelsea –

watched three of the fab five

so I could take my cousin Cate out for lunch for her birthday.

I returned to many amusing stories from their afternoon with my college girls,

the most amusing being the one about how Olivia took her diaper off,

crawled under their dining room table

and purposely peed on the ground

because she was pretending to be a puppy.

As my college girls were telling me the story,

all I had to say back to them was that,

the next time they find themselves on a hot little college date

with the boy who sat behind them in Calculus,

I hope they remember that kids in the backseat cause accidents.

And accidents in the backseat cause kids.

– — –

Bonus material, just because it’s Wednesday:

the fab five, together in the puppy store,

narrated by me whilst losing my voice: