Charlotte's birthday weekend was loads of fun. It featured vast quantities of buttercream, balloons, and spontaneous renditions of a song Charlotte calls "The Tractor and the Mower." The temps were soaring and the humidity was high, but we all sweated through the outdoor birthday party happily. The buttercream also sweated, unfortunately. (Still delicious). The night before Charlotte's party, our water heater broke. We all (and that includes my visiting parents) enjoyed "pioneer baths" Sunday morning, involving trips from the stove to the tub with pots of boiling water. After the party we took cold showers. Invigorating! Fortunately, the problem was fixed Monday and we could all return to our indulgent, Western ways.

We had Charlotte's birthday party on Sunday, but her actual birthday was, of course, Tuesday, and I wanted to do something special to commemorate her actual day. Now that she's three, she knows the difference between just a boring, regular day and a celebration, and I didn't want her to feel short-changed. So we went to Chuck E. Cheese's.

When I mentioned this fact in my status update on Facebook, many people applauded me for my bravery or expressed surprise at my (I assume) stupidity. I think people must have either different impressions of Chuck E. Cheese's (henceforth CEC) than I do, or bad memories there. Because it was rad! Some of my favorite birthday memories are my brother's and my golden birthday parties (the seventh and the eighth, respectively) which we celebrated at what was the equivalent of CEC at the time, Show Biz Pizza.

Charlotte was understandably overwhelmed by all the flashing lights and bells and whistles, but after we ate our pizza in the presence of a giant animatronic rat, she was ready to participate. But to be honest, I think my parents, Jeff and I had as much fun as she did. Skee-ball, people! Did you know you can still rack up 32000 points on skee-ball when you have a six-month-old strapped to you in a baby bjorn? It's true! I let Sam deploy the button on one particular game, and he won 34 tickets! Jackpot!

At one point, as my mom and I stood in front of a machine, feeding tokens in hypnotically, she turned to me and said, "I don't think we should ever go to Vegas." Heh.