Party On

It was Ian's birthday last week.  With a lot of help from friends and family (particularly Angie!  thank you!) I was able to throw Ian a surprise party.  It worked out perfectly, despite my anxiety over the whole thing.  Sadly, but kind of perfectly, Ian had a really lousy first part of the day.  I was busy with a potential job opportunity from early in the morning until after noon.  I came home expecting Ian to be gone with his family-- but actually found him on the couch, alone, eating a sandwich he had made for himself.  He had spent the morning bored and lonely.  We hung out for a little while until he decided to go to his parents to do some editing for work.  He had expected to hang out with his siblings when he was done but no one was home.  Little did Ian know that while he was at his parents I was running around like a headless chicken trying to get the party ready.  When I finally came to pick him up for dinner-- he seemed pretty bummed.  While I was sorry for him, I was feeling secret triumph that the surprise party would be that much better in contrast.  I confess, I rubbed it in a little.  I kept apologizing for his lonely day and berated him for not calling me when he was finished editing-- saying how I could have picked  him up to do something fun (even though I would have panicked if had done considering I had just enough time to get everything ready).  We went to a dinner at a fabulous hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant in Huntington, WV.  You know it's going to be good when the only other customers in the restaurant are Indian.  It's easily the best Indian food I've come across.  Each bite tastes like a revelation.  Ian's spirits began to rise a little after that.  I was thanking my lucky stars that we had finished dinner just in time to make the half-hour drive home for the start of the party.  The "plan" was to go to Ian's parents for cake and ice cream but of course I had to stop at our apartment to pick up the cake and refreshments.  I asked Ian to come and help me with everything and to his surprise we had a large number of people hiding in our kitchen.  It's so much more fun when they're free of suspicion.

Everything turned out so well!  I had wanted to create a child-like party to help Ian feel like he was a special kid again, singled out with a birthday surprise.  I think I did a pretty good job.  I was given free HULK party decorations that I taped all over the house and gave him a dinosaur birthday card.  Ian commented later that when he saw his Where the Wild Things Are balloon he felt just like a kid again.  Success is sweet.  We're so lucky to have so many friends here.

Happy Birthday Ian face!  You are loved.