The Time We Bought A House

Okay, devoted readers, if you were underwhelmed by my home decor diatribes on things like curtains, pillows, Ikea and more curtains, then you are really in trouble now. Get ready for the impending onslaught of over-thought heading your way as I chronicle my adventures as a first time homeowner. Yes, it's true, we bought a house!

It's a hot little number, a 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch in the Valley. I say hot because it was about 100 degrees when we started some work on it this past weekend. That work, unfortunately, did not include air conditioning repair (still pending).

While we'd been shopping for a home in fits and starts since the beginning of the year, we got really serious about it one particular Friday when my friend Hayley was visiting from New York. My houseguest probably thought she'd spend time at the beach or sightseeing in Hollywood. But I knew what she really wanted to do was take a driving tour of modest neighborhoods in the vicinity of the Van Nuys airport. You're welcome, Hayley. I am, if nothing else, a devoted hostess.

First we saw a house that Devin really liked, but which struck me as possibly pre-fab and definitely adjacent to a creepy vacant lot with a pigeon coop and a sign that boasted (deceptively, I assume) "No cat traps." Then we saw a recently flipped house with nothing special about it other than the peacock living in the yard across the street.

We very nearly skipped the next house our list, but for whatever reason decided to stick with it. I led the group in through the front door. I hadn't even made it through the hallway before I turned around to gauge Devin and Hayley's reactions. They mirrored mine: This was our house. It just had to be.

I can't say exactly what about it spoke to me. The layout was cool, for one thing. It felt like there were lots of places to go, rooms to pass through on your way to other rooms. Many of the homes we saw were set up with a conglomerate living room/kitchen/dining room thing, and then bedrooms separately down the hall. This floorplan bothers me because it gives me the same feeling I have in my apartment: when you stand up, there's nothing to do but sit back down again.

We also liked the high ceiling in the living room, the ample wood paneling in both (yes, both) living rooms, and the two (yes, two) fireplaces. It was cozy, like a cabin, but at the same time felt distinctly Californian.

Immediately we put in an offer, then waited until Monday for a response. Along with our offer we included a letter to the sellers about how much we loved the property and how, unlike so many investors who were snatching up homes like theirs, we wouldn't change a thing about it. We loved the house just the way it was. (Except for the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter shade of yellow slathered on half the walls... and even the baseboards. The baseboards!)

The real estate market in the area is out of control these days and crazed buyers get in bidding wars over total dumps. So I'd already made peace with the fact that we were never going to get this house when our realtor called on Monday afternoon and told us our offer was accepted, no counter offer or anything. I was relieved. I think he wanted me to sound more excited, but I had trouble checking back in with reality. We chatted about next steps. I asked dumb questions, poorly phrased on account of my shock-induced stupor. Then I hung up the phone and immediately began to wonder, "Wait... does this mean we offered too much money?"

From that phone call until we closed escrow this past Friday, a mere 25 days total, I was in hyper-alert, panicky state. I'll spare you the details of what paperwork and events happened when and why (mostly because I will get everything wrong), but suffice to say I was certain that at any moment, some unforeseen factor would derail the whole operation and we'd be homeless. I was so paranoid that I refused to tell most people the house was even a thing.  When we finally went public with the news, the general reaction was, "Congrats!...What?"

At last, we're over the hard part. We've leveled an acre of forest to produce all of the paperwork we signed. Our bank accounts and credit scores are no longer up for inspection. And our mortgage has already long since been sold to China.

Now the fun begins! The instant I walked into the house as the actual owner, I took one look at the place and concluded I had to change everything about it.  I know I promised I wouldn't. But now I must. You know, over time. Everyone needs a hobby. And blog fodder.

My Car Is Falling Apart: An Essay

[Editor’s note: Because my deteriorating car is a Ford Focus, I was going to be clever and title this post something like “Losing Focus” or “I Can’t Keep It Together: The Problem With My Focus.” Then it occurred to me that those titles could pretty much have been assigned to any of my previous posts so I'd better be more specific.]

The year was 2006. I was working an assistant job with a miserable salary, always paid my bills late, and regularly had a double-digit checking account balance. My car was Misty, a modest Mercury Mystique with manageable payments.  She wasn’t glamorous, but she never failed to get me from point A (my studio apartment) to point B (my bad job).  She probably would’ve gotten to point C or Z too, but I’ll never know because I never went anyplace else.  

Then, one sunny afternoon, Misty was totaled. It was a particularly scary car accident that left me with PTSD (self-diagnosed) and a mountain of insurance paperwork. And to top it all off, I was faced with the daunting and expensive task of buying a new car. Since, up until that point, I’d had no intention of making such a purchase, I was wholly unprepared as a consumer. Also, did I mention I had no money?

I began with a few ill-fated trips to the Toyota and Honda dealerships. Both concluded with me sitting down at a sales rep’s desk, crunching numbers and feeling my heartbeat thumping in my ears until I’d hit the panic button. “I can’t afford this!” And I’d quickly show myself to the door, embarrassed.

I used up the month’s worth of rental car coverage my insurance policy offered, and then started taking Devin’s car to work, dropping him at his job on the way. He was patient with this arrangement, up to a point, and then gently reminded me that “Oh, by the way, you need to get a car.”

That weekend, I walked the half mile from my apartment to the Ford dealership, told them how much I could pay a month, that I wasn’t kidding, and I didn’t even want to look at a car I couldn’t afford. I test-drove a 2007 Focus hatchback. It seemed fine, so I asked for one in a different color and, without much fanfare, I bought it. 

3 weeks later, I had maybe more wine than I should have, and scratched the whole left side of the Focus on a cement column as I tried to maneuver into the carport at Devin’s apartment.

But aside from that, the Focus has survived without incident.

Over time, its charm wore off. The 2-door-ness of it grew especially tiresome. I suppose when I was signing on the dotted line all those years ago, I hadn’t considered the absurd logistics of getting a squirming baby in and out of a car seat by climbing over the folded front seat. 

Still, even as I’d completely outgrown the hunka junk, I kept making payments. Month after month for almost 7 full years. Then, in April, I realized I had enough in my savings account to pay off the balance owed on the car and I decided to go for it. I set up the transfer online, clicked submit, and just like that, the car was mine. All mine. 

I felt nothing.

I thought I’d feel the same intoxicating mix of relief and pride that I’d felt whenever I’d paid down a credit card. But no. I hoped I wasn’t supposed to take away some depressing life lesson like, “You’ll never be satisfied with anything,” or “When you get what you want, you don’t want it.” Trying not to let these feelings take hold, I instead spread the news of my accomplishment to friends. It was met with congratulations and kudos, as I’d expected, and it made me feel better.

And then, out of nowhere, it started. My Focus, now 100% bought and paid for, began to fall apart in chunks.

First, it was the center console compartment. I moved to tilt it up so I could get a pen that fell beneath it, and the whole thing just came off in my hand.

My mouth dropped open and I sat there, stunned. Not so much at the incident itself, but at how oddly appropriate it was. Of course my car is literally falling apart now. Of course it is.

The next casualty was the part of the wall that houses the seatbelt. I was driving to a hair appointment on a Saturday when I felt something on my shoulder. Instinctively, I jumped. (I am always convinced there are poisonous spiders living in my car.) But then, when I looked down I saw a piece of the car’s wall had just come loose, slid down the belt, and was now perched on my shoulder like a little pet.  

The intended life lesson was shaping up to be even more depressing than I’d originally thought. Something more along the lines of, “When you get what you worked hard for, it all falls apart.” God damn it. This was unacceptable.

I chose to laugh it off. And then ignore it. After all, everything is fixable; plastic pieces that just needed to be clicked back into place by someone more skilled than myself because all of my reassembly attempts have come up short.

Then, this happened.

One morning, I walked out to the car, which I’d parked on the street, and the rearview mirror was dangling by the power cord for the auto-adjustment controls. Someone must've driven by and clipped it. I stopped in my tracks and sighed. 

Already ridiculously late to work, I didn’t have much time to dwell. I needed a quick solution. Across the street, I could hear the clatter and power saw buzzes of a contractor at work. I approached the gate at the end of the driveway, stood on my tip toes and peered in to see a sizeable crew. Certainly they’d have something that would help me.

“Excuse me,” I beckoned, waving my arm over the solid iron gate. “Hello?!” One man heard me and looked around, confused. “Over here!” I called out again, and then his eyes met mine.  The gate obscured everything below the bridge of my nose, and I must’ve looked like Wilson from Home Improvement as I made my plea. “Hi! Can I borrow some… uh… duct tape I guess. Someone knocked the mirror off my car and I need to reattach it so I can go to work.” I kept yammering on as he walked down the driveway toward me. “You don’t have to do anything. If I can just borrow the tape I’ll take care of it myself. It’ll just take a second.”

Finally, he reached the gate, opened it, and asked, “What?”

Of course he couldn’t hear me, speaking directly into solid metal and competing with the noise of power tools and passing traffic. Once we were face to face, I repeated myself and he—Elder—graciously offered to help.

A few moments later, my rearview mirror was sufficiently smothered in shiny foil tape.

You could say it looked cooler than ever. You’d only be saying that to make me feel better, but still.

Obviously Elder and I only knew one another for about 5 minutes, but I got a good read on him. He seemed like the kind of guy who didn’t sweat the small stuff. As he taped, he shook his head and offered, “Yeah I always park my truck on the street and I’ve had my mirror knocked off a couple times.” He shrugged. “Nothing you can do. I mean, I guess don’t park on the street.” Well played. 

I thanked Elder, then I climbed into my car and got organized, cueing up a podcast to listen to on speakerphone because the Focus certainly doesn’t have an mp3 hookup. I glanced at the console now at rest on the floor behind the front passenger seat. I looked at the paint worn off of the radio buttons. The upholstery stain from a spilled bottle of Gatorade. And, at last, I realized what it all really meant: absolutely nothing.

As I drove to work, the plastic piece of wall came loose yet again, eased its way down the seatbelt, and came to rest on my shoulder. I reached my left hand up and gave it a pat. “There, there. There, there.”

May Meal Challenge: June Justifications

You've probably spent much of the last month wondering how things were going with my overzealous May Meal Challenge. I apologize if you've lost any sleep over it. And I applaud your commitment to my commitments. 

Allow me to congratulate both of us on my success. I did it! 

Well, I mean, you might say I technically completed the challenge. Sort of. 

If you don't count the 4 or 5 nights I just didn't eat dinner at all because I couldn't be bothered. 

And, if you overlook those evenings when I only went through the motions of making a unique meal, and didn't embrace the spirit of the challenge by seeking out exciting new recipes. 

Sure, there were a few highlights from my culinary discovery: 

Chicken stir fry

Falafel salad with cucumber tzatziki 

Mushroom ravioli

Then, there were some low lights:

Don't judge me

It was a Friday night

Some old favorites I haven't made in a while:

tacos! 

Tune noodle casserole

Shrimp pad thai

Some surprisingly delicious improvisations:

Black bean burger on salad

Cheese plate, chinese take out vegetarian orange chicken, salad, lots of wine

It wasn't like this was very hard to do. In the first two weeks, I thought it was almost easier than my old scramble and forage method. I'd actually go to the store with a proper list of things to buy. I had focus when couponing. Then, to be honest, I don't know what happened. It sounds like a real cop-out to say "life took over."  But it did.

Still, I think it's worth trying out, if you've got a bad case of the dinnertime blahs. I'm sure any of you would be more successful than I was.  And if you're looking for recipe ideas, I've got a great one for a dish called "Take Out from The Cheesecake Factory."

Crab artichoke dip and kale salad 

The May Meal Challenge

There is a woman I work with who eats the same thing for breakfast pretty much every single day.  And also regularly repeats the same order from the same restaurant for lunch. "Don't you ever get sick of that?" I've asked on a number of occasions.  "Nope. When I find something I like I could just eat it forever." I give her a shrug that's meant to say something like, "They say variety is the spice of life, but hey whatever works for you, Blandy Blanderson."

But I'm a fraud. I don't select my meals from a diverse catalogue of personally tested recipes. There is no soup du jour. I eat the same old stuff day in and day out --partly because I'm lazy, partly because I can't prioritize my to-do list in a way that puts "dabble in quinoa" above "dear god, sleep." I'm no better than my meal-repeating coworker. Actually, I'm worse, because as she happily tucks into her Southwest salad with light ranch dressing for the third time in a week, I sit down at my desk with a handful of trail mix from the office kitchen cupboards, wondering what I'll eat for lunch or if I should even bother eating at all because I'm just sick of the whole activity.

There have been times when I've tried to break the cycle.  Like making my own fried calamari. And, the brief foray into locally grown organic yaddi yadda because I was pregnant and, frankly, had nothing better to do. But over (very little) time, I always slide back into a pattern of empty fridge, last minute jaunts to the supermarket, and "well there's always pasta."

Lately I've been suffering from culinary fatigue even more than usual, perhaps because I'm surrounded by people on interesting new diets. I tried consulting one of my cookbooks before grocery shopping this past Sunday, but was too indecisive and instead just bought more of the same old standards. And just when I didn't think I could feel any worse, I realized this boredom was rubbing off on Oscar. Last night, in his daily report from daycare, there was a special note "I think he needs more variation in his food.  He's not eating much of it and wasting a lot."

Oh for the love.

Conveniently it's May 1st today, meaning it's perfect timing to issue a month long challenge. Specifically, The May Meal Challenge.   31 nights. 31 different dinners.

Some parameters:

1. Resisting the urge to combine initiatives, these meals do not all have to be "healthy." Sure, I'll aim to be as well-balanced and lower fat as I typically am, but I'm not going to get carried away and doom the May Meal Challenge from the very beginning.

2. Devin isn't going to be forced into this, though hopefully he will benefit from it. For one thing, he is currently at home working on a script and has no idea I concocted this plan on the drive to work. For another, we have differing opinions on what constitutes a good dinner and (though I feel he will fight me on this) part of the reason for the rut is owing to his "meat and potatoes" tastes.  I, on the other hand, am something of a lapsed vegetarian; some meats are still forbidden, while the rest don't do much for me and I prefer to eat them sparingly. There are few meals that offer a satisfactory compromise.  Seafood is a mutual favorite of ours, but there's only so many nights a week you can eat fish before suffering intense mercury poisoning. I'm happy with all manner of vegetarian alternatives for the protein portion of a meal, and will probably have to delve into that to meet the monthly challenge, and when this happens, Devin is free to improvise his own alternative meal. (TL;DR: tough luck, you're on your own.)

3. Take out or dining out is totally acceptable. Just because I'm mixing it up doesn't mean I have to do it all from scratch. After all, nothing busts up dinner blah-dom like piping hot panang curry delivered straight to your door.

I'll be checking back in with thoughts and, of course, pictures. If you have any meal or recipe suggestions, please leave them in the comments.  I could use some inspiration!

A Mountain of Downton or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Streaming Content

Growing up, I preferred watching TV to almost any other activity.  I liked riding my bike, sure.  Choreographing dance routines, playing dress-up, giggling at sleepovers -- all delightful endeavors.  But TV was always awesome.  Always was, and always will be.

That's why I'm caught off-guard whenever someone ruins a perfectly good conversation by saying, "I don't watch TV."  These folks know very well what they're doing, forcing you to conjure up images of the quiet evenings they spend at home reading The New Yorker, playing classical piano, sketching a still life with pastels.  While you've got your eyes fixed to last night's DVR'd Daily Show, eating off a plate in your lap and dribbling sauce on your sweatshirt, they're out dining with novelists, snuggled into a booth at a jazz club, attending an opening at an art gallery downtown.  What else would a non-TV-watcher do with his time other than every aspirational thing you fail to do on a daily basis? 

For a select few individuals who "don't watch TV," this is some version of the truth.  But the rest of them are just waiting for you, the TV-watching neanderthal, to cock your head to the side, furrow your unibrow and ask, amazed, "You no watch TV? What you mean you no watch TV?"

"I have Hulu plus/Netflix/Apple TV."  Mmhmm.  There it is.  You watch TV shows.  That's the same thing.  Now quit wasting my time.  I have Kardashians to keep up with!

Once the new media cat is out of the bag, they move to convincing you why you don't need old fashioned (cable) TV any more.  And I suppose, in many ways, they're right.  You really can see pretty much everything online or on an iPad or through a PS3 (I just figured out how to do that 5 days ago) or, okay I'm out of my element.  I don't know how else but I know there must be something.  A cranial implant.  A service that sends a show to your phone via text in one minute video chunks.

Through and through, I'm a TV -- nay, a television -- traditionalist.  I like watching shows week to week, roughly around the time they originally air.  It gives me something to look forward to.  [When HBO promotes "watch next week's episode right now on HBO GO," I am horrified.  What would I do next week?!]  I like sitting on my couch, remote in hand, directing my attention to my beloved, outdated flat-screen.  Is that so wrong?  I even like that I have 300 channels and at any given time I hate whatever is airing on all of them.

But, like the aforementioned TV-shunning freaks, I haven't been giving you the full story.  There is one element of the new frontier that I have actually embraced: The sleep-depriving, best-laid-plan-ruining, back-to-back-episode series viewing binge.  It's the kind of thing we brag about, even if we should be embarrassed.  "I haven't worked out in a month. I'm catching up on Walking Dead before it comes back."  "Sorry I didn't call you back, I was catching up on Homeland."  In my case, I managed to watch the first 2 seasons of Downton Abbey in 4 days time.

May I remind you, this is ME we're talking about.  I can't manage to accomplish anything these days.  I don't even know how it happened. Devin was working and I was alone taking care of Oscar for all of the long weekend.  I went to the park, the farmer's market, Target.  I did laundry.  I cleaned.  And, unfathomably, I watched 15+ hours of a show that you have to pay a good deal of attention to or you'll miss a plot point faster than you can say Lavinia Swire.

What compels me, or any of us, to OD on shows in this manner?  Is it just because we can?  Because they're so accessible?  

Or is it in large part to the phenomenon of "catching up" on a series?  Heaven forbid anyone see a single episode of a talked-about show without first viewing the dozen or fifty episodes that preceded it.

It didn't used to be like that, did it?  My memory is foggy, but I seem to remember it was acceptable to simply jump into a show whenever you pleased, relying on the kindness of friends to fill you in if you got confused with a plot line. [Entire marriages perhaps stayed alive because one spouse frequently leaned across the sofa to ask the other, "Wait, now who is that?  Did he blackmail the father in law?"]  During the decade-long run of Beverly Hills, 90210 I only popped in for a few episodes every other season, and I could pretty much make sense of everything (except for what was happening to Donna's boobs).  

Now that I think about it, have shows become more complexly serialized because they know the audience could very well be watching a whole season in one thirteen-hour marathon?  That would explain why, when I sit down on Sunday night to watch Game of Thrones,  I wonder if perhaps I suffered some kind of head trauma in the week since the last episode because I can't remember anyone or make sense of anything.

Anyway, the tv-viewing populace is divided into two groups: those who are caught up (with the smug subset of those who watched every episode as it originally aired) and those unfortunate souls who are not caught up.  The latter will forever be making excuses and living under a media black-out for fear of encountering the dreaded spoiler.  It's no way to live.

And, with Downton Abbey, I'm in a not caught up prison of my own making.  I have the third season to watch.  But the finale, with some major major devastating event, just aired this past Sunday and those who were caught up were loudly mourning, conspiratorially.  I couldn't stand not knowing so I went online and found out what happened.  It's bad.  Very bad.  So bad, in fact, that I may not be able to make myself watch the third season knowing what's about to happen.  Surely by the fourth season things will have improved. 

Is it acceptable, these days, to skip a whole season?  I'll pick it back up when the new one premieres, and I'll watch it on an actual TV, one episode per week, like they do in the rec room of an old folks home. 

I think I'm in over my head.  Maybe I'll start throwing a new wrench into television related conversation.  Instead of "I don't watch TV," I'll be the one going around claiming, "I don't know how to watch TV any more."  That's more accurate. 

Oscar's First Birthday

Read the last post and this one back to back and you might think my life is one big party.  And I'll go ahead and let you think that because it makes me look like I'm more fun that I am.  Party party party.  It's all one big party at the Mahoney household.

This most recent bash honored the first, and so far greatest, year in the life of young Oscar Finn.  I did not want to screw this one up.

Cheer up kid, it's your party

The Theme: Simplicity

After the deceptively massive undertaking that was The Halloween Party, I concluded that as far as kids parties are considered, simplicity is the name of the game.  No elaborate menus.  Certainly nothing cooked from scratch.  Minimal decor.  Just take it freaking easy.  Since one of my resolutions for 2013 is to learn my lesson, I vowed to keep my Martha Stewart idealism in check.

[By the by, other New Years resolutions include: be thankful for at least one thing every day; be happy for people without being jealous; and the perennial classic, be better at everything.]

The Location

I spent, no joke, most of 2012 knowing that we'd hold Oscar's birthday in one of the covered pavilions at Lake Balboa because the park offered a playground, water fowl, and a private reserved section of picnic tables.



In June, I went online to find out how to reserve a space.  Fearing I'd seem crazy booking so far in advance (needed it for January), I held off.  (Not sure why I'm worried what the Los Angeles Parks Department thinks of me...) In September, I almost put in my application, but again decided to wait it out (for unclear reasons).  Then I forgot about it for a bit.  And when I finally called in December, I was told I needed to book 30 days in advance and I'd missed the window. 

But all was not lost.  There are plenty of other picnic tables in plenty of parks.  After doing a rethink, I elected to throw the party near the Merry Go Round at Griffith Park.

It had everything I needed in a locale... Something to do.  Enough space for us to spread out.  And an intriguing degree of eeriness. 


Done and done.  Invites were sent!
"But what if the weather is bad?" asked my sister.
"The weather is never bad."
"But what if it is?"
"It won't be. It's fine.

The Location Part II

A week before the big day, the weather forecast went from great (70 and sunny), to less favorable yet still doable (60 and partly sunny), to completely worrisome (52 and rainy).  I began to scramble, trying to find indoor venues at the last minute. Restaurants had expensive private rooms that would probably be destroyed in minutes by the onslaught of children.  Kids gyms would be appropriate, but would leave our considerably large number of adult, child-free guests feeling a bit out of place (although, to be fair, everyone loves parachute time).  What we needed, in short, was a house.  As if I hadn't already felt down on myself for failing to own one...

Fortunately, Oscar's Aunt Katie, stepped in with a marvelous solution.  She persuaded her very generous boss to let us take over his house for the afternoon.  Some people are just the best.  I updated the Paperless Post invite.  Crisis averted. 

The day of the party, I stepped outside to walk Seamus, expecting to be confronted with the bitter cold and rain I was promised.   Instead, the sun had the nerve to shine warm on my face.  The air was cool, but in a pleasant crisp way that any light jacket could handle.  Damn it.  Too late to go back now!

The Party Plan: Two Hours Of Non-stop Fun!

Depending on how you look at it, the collection of activities and decor either completely obeyed the principles of simplicity by being a grab bag of easy solutions, or wholly missed the mark by being an incongruous cluster-eff.

A week before the party I realized "simplicity" was not necessarily another word for "do nothing" and that I really needed to get in line.  So I started ordering supplies on Amazon.  Dinosaurs?  Sure, why not.

Dinosaur bake cups.

 

Dinosaur masks.

And dinosaur rubber duckies.


Rounding off the decor and activity smorgasbord

• a neon green vinyl tablecloth leftover from (wait for it...) my bridal (yes you read that correctly-bridal) shower
• 4 (no more, no less) beach balls I bought at Target
• glittery plastic maracas (more Amazon)
• 2 Halloween themed garlands (1 skulls, 1 bats) leftover from the last party
• A bubble machine that I overfilled and broke the handle off of in the first minute of use

And of course, the piéce de résistance, the homemade ball pit.



As an observant +1 in Oscar's baby birthday party circuit, I'd concluded every party needed a somewhat secure place to dump squirmy babies so adults can eat, drink, and mingle in relative peace for 5 minutes.





So why not make a ball pit using a kiddy pool?   We already had the blow up pool.  And I ordered the plastic balls from Amazon.


Note: If you're considering doing this yourself, check to see if anyone is selling ball pit balls on Craigslist.  They're the sort of a limited use/annoying to store item parents are always trying to get rid of for cheap.  I was actually going to buy two trash bags full off a Craigslist post before the 'yatch went and sold them to someone else while I was waiting for her to email me her address.  Hopefully you'll have better luck.


Food

This was easy.  I ordered the biggest pizza I could find. 2 of them, actually, because the helpful gal at the pizza place told me 1 of them would feed 15-20.  I assumed she meant 15-20 adult humans, but I guess I should've asked her to be specific.  Guests were sent home with giant foil bundles of extra slices.  No one complained. 


Other snacks included a bowl of Cheetos, Cheerios for the kiddies, a plate of rice krispies treats, and a veggie platter (assigned to Becca to expertly prepare).  That's how you do simple, folks.  My total prep time: 20 minutes... not including the homemade (from a box) cupcakes, which were probably another hour or so, but totally worth it as the birthday boy thoroughly enjoyed his dessert.

Final Thoughts

Like any event thrown ever in history, there were hits and misses.  But overall I'll go ahead and call this one a success.

And should any of you readers find yourself planning a 1-year-old's birthday party in the future, and should I have given you any reason to trust my advice whatsoever, here are a few other nuggets of wisdom:

• Let someone else be the photographer so you can enjoy yourself/worry about everything else.   I learned this from one of my mom role models, Miriam, who always hires someone to take pics.  I duped Becca into taking on the task.  
•  Keep the event to 2-3 hours max.  Unlike adult parties, which are only cool if they end at ?, if a kid party went on ceaselessly, everybody would go crazy.  A short and sweet party means guests arrive on time, fully enjoy themselves, and then peace out at your predetermined hour so that you can be all cleaned up before bedtime. (Your bedtime or the baby's, if the two are even different.  Mine basically are the same.)
• Order pizza.  Or have it catered.  Pizza is cheaper.  And everyone likes pizza.  Seriously.  Pizza. 
• Paper snail-mail invitations are adorable.  But email invitations can easily be updated with important information like "Oh by the way the weather is bad and the whole party is moving!" or other fun surprises.  
• If you work full time, hold the party on Sunday instead of Saturday.  You'll need the Saturday to do stuff and you'll work yourself in a frenzy trying to get things done on weeknights.  

Halloween Party

Back in the day, Devin and I hosted a pretty mean Halloween party. For three years in a row, we'd put out some boozy punch and our neighbors would look the other way while our apartment building's courtyard filled up with impressively costumed, impressively drunk twentysomethings.  

Some kind of space girl

The annual Boo-B-Q, as it was called though no food was served, was a hostess's dream.   Minimal planning, massive reward, and cleanup basically involved shoveling solo cups off every surface in the apartment and into big black trash bags.  Ah, those were the days.  

Planning a Halloween party for babies, it turns out, is nothing like that.  

COSTUMES:

Inspired by a set of green monster PJs we found at Target, I decided to make Oscar a little monster.  Devin and I would be his monster parents, with the twist being that we'd dress as archetypal, mid-century nuclear family mom and dad.   Think Betty and Don Draper... but monsters.  I don't know, it made sense in my brain. 

As usual, I had big plans involving fun fur, fake teeth, the sewing machine... But whereas in the past I was able to pull off grand designs, no matter how last minute (see: the Kermit costume from two years ago, or "The Other Great Muppet Caper"), this year it just wasn't in the cards.  

I bet I know where you think I'm going with this.  I'm going to lament how I had no time to shop for costume bits or pull anything together.  Not so!   I spent many hours pacing the aisles of Halloween stores, Michael's and JoAnn Fabrics.  However, the universe was working against me.  I couldn't find anything I needed.  

JoAnn let me down, only selling fur in normal earth animal colors.  No orange or blue or green.  The Halloween store was full of demon horns, but no friendly monster horns.  I don't know what I expected.  And my intentions of Devin and I sporting some rocking underbite fangs went right out the window when I discovered the teeth I wanted were kept specially locked away in the glass case by the register and sold for $30 a pop.  

I was forced to improvise.  

I bought 2 sets of demon horns, one for me and one for Devin.  They are supposed to stay on your head with a little black elastic band.  I must be a conehead or something because they kept sliding off the back of my skull.  And since wearing the string under my chin, party hat style, seemed uncomfortable, I picked up a headband at Michael's to rework them.

The demon horns were a little too severe looking for my monster mom costume.  So I rummaged around in my craft supplies tub and found some silver paint.  I couldn't manage to locate a brush, however, so I finger painted.

Then I hot glued my not-yet-dry-but-I-was-out-of-patience horns to the headband.  I used some some extra fuzzy pipecleaners I'd picked up on one of my many manic trips to Target (more on that later) and they wound and wound around the headband for very easy application. 

As for Oscar, I hadn't been able to embellish his monster PJs with colorful fur since apparently non exists for purchase.  JoAnn, you ignorant slut.  The only thing I had been able to do was commission Becca to crochet him a monster hat.

I don't know, I guess we look like something. 

Further improvising, in lieu of fun fur, Devin sprayed green stuff in his hair and beard.  He also wore a dad-like sweater that stayed on for about twenty minutes because it was 95 degrees on the day of the party. 

DECORATIONS:

Like many a party-thrower, I fell victim to the Pinterest/Martha Stewart trap.  The one where you get sucked in with ideas like this:

And drive yourself slowly mad attempting to replicate something you'd hardly be able to pull off if given a month to decorate your home.  But you've only got six hours.  And the baby will be awake for five of them. You know, that trap.

Anyway:

A closer look at a few details:

This took me, somehow, three hours to accomplish during the late hours the night before the party.  It was the culmination of a week's worth of lunchtime excursions to the aforementioned craft places as well as Target (thrice), during which I dashed through the aisles, for no particular reason, shopping like I had a gun held to my head, throwing anything in my cart that was orange and/or black and/or under $10.  I should've taken a picture of the stockpile in the dining room. 

Aside from this table, the only other decor I could manage was another vinyl table cloth in the living room -- that one was orange and black striped.  So, I have some unopened packs of streamers and sparkly garland and various other goodies for some future Halloween gathering when I come dressed as someone who has her shit together. 

FOOD

Were it not for a gross miscalculation of time, this could've been the one category I got right.  

On the menu were Deviled Eggs (made to look like devils), Monster Mash (some concept I came up with for a mashed potato bar), Buffalo Chicken Barf (buffalo chicken dip spewing out of a jack-o-lantern's mouth), and Yummy Mummies (which were originally named Mummy Dogs). 

The day of the party I cleaned and cleaned, telling myself the cleaning cut off was 12 and then I'd have to focus on food.  Then suddenly it was 2:30.  The party started at 3. Crap.

I'd made the Deviled Eggs the night before, but ran out of steam before I could decorate them with red pepper and caper eyes to make them into little devils.  The next day there was no time, so regular ol' Deviled Eggs were served and there's a useless jar of capers sitting in my cupboard.

The Monster Mash actually went right.  Good thing mashed potatoes from scratch are really easy to throw together in a pinch.  Ha!  Set out in a crock pot to stay warm, they were served with bacon, sour cream, cheese and chives.  I forgot to take a picture so lets all pretend it looks like this:

The Buffalo Chicken Barf miraculously came together, though the presentation proved more off-putting than I'd envisioned.

 

As for the Mummies, I downgraded them to run o the mill pigs in a blanket and planned to shlap them together halfway through the party.  When I turned on the oven to heat it up, it set aflame the bacon grease hiding on the bottom of the oven and smoked out the whole party.  I turned the oven off, let it cool, cleaned it (yes, while wearing a dress and monster horns with a house full of people), then tried again.  Devin came into the kitchen, slicing through the thick haze of smoke, wondering what the hell I was doing.  The Mummies were scrapped.

Lastly, there were the snacks for babies, which were easiest to prepare.

For a week, Oscar was finding and happily eating discarded Cheerios in various nooks and crannies of the apartment.  I think he learned the very valuable lesson that when you encounter free snacks, you eat them, quickly and without asking any questions.

THE GUESTS

The biggest difference between planning a party for adults and babies is that babies, and their parents, do not care about any of it.  I don't mean they don't appreciate it.  They just aren't critiquing everything.  They are glad to be somewhere, to not be the ones having to host, and are too distracted chasing after their little ones to fuss over fancy decor and clever food names.

Everyone I talked to after the party said it was a hit.  So either they're just being nice... or I went overboard for no reason. 

Next time, I'm putting out a bowl of Cheetos and calling it a day.  Less flailing.  More playing.