Dear Diary,

Another successful birthday party. The pizza part was funded by Book It! so it was an award and a group event all in one. My son was getting antsy as the pile of gifts next to him had ceased growing, and he said, "Can I open presents now, before anyone else gets up?" I realized I had kept asking him to wait for various people to return to the table, and he was patiently observing that all were presently seated. His maturity smacks me in the face, sometimes. I don't have babies anymore.



The Lego part was more frustrating. I'm learning to be patient about others' varying levels of participation. All these kids had to do was build something out of all the cool bricks available and weigh it for the birthday-party participation quota. How hard is it to get kids to build something out of Legos? you ask. You would be quite surprised. Darkness fell and the guy manning the store glowed in saintly patience. They were supposed to close at six, but the clock ticked closer to seven as each kid finally presented their sculptures to the scale to be tallied.

By the way, I highly recommend taking your kids to the Lego store. It's amazing! If you want to know what to get me for any reason, you can pick me up some of those cups they use for buying miscellaneous bricks in bulk.

For today's Odd Holiday entry, we have one of my favorite celebration juxtopositions: it's "I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore" day as well as International Programmers' Day. Thus, we must all watch out for disgruntled employees who know how to make brutal computer viruses. Please don't open any attachments from spammers today. Please?