Milly was born at 1:10 AM on this day nine years ago. At 1:10 AM today, Tristen and I had just finished giving the boys their late night bottles and were taping Happy Birthday streamers across Milly’s door to trap balloons there so when she opened the door they would spill in on her. It was Tristen’s idea, and she remarked that if Milly happened to get up at like 3 AM to go to the bathroom and open the door, it might be terrifying to have things unexpectedly fall on you in the dark like that. We took that chance.

Fortunately, Milly didn’t open her door until about 6:30. I heard her get out of bed and had the camera ready. Unfortunately, she didn’t swing her door wide open and the balloons, while still being a fun surprise for her, just sort of trickled out at the bottom instead of showering her.

We didn’t get anything particularly big for Milly this year. There wasn’t one big present, I mean. She got to see a ballet of Cinderella a couple days ago, got a sleeping bag, a Brain Games book that she should enjoy reading now and then, a bunch of clothes, a bracelet Tristen had held onto to give to her from our trip to Cozumel. I think that was about it. Mom sent her a garden fairy set. It’s this house and figurines that you set up to go outside (or I guess you could keep it inside and play with it). She thought that was pretty cool and was going to go play with it, but I wanted to get her out the door for breakfast.

Breakfast was IHOP. Milly usually gets the chocolate pancake on the rare occasions we go there, but this time they had a cupcake pancake, so she tried that. I got a tres leches pancake.

I got a number of looks walking in there with Milly in front of me and car seats on either arm. Strangely, I didn’t get the usual, “OMG are they twins?” from anyone, but a few people asked how old the boys are.

I had made plans to spend all the time Milly was here today with her then working later. After we got back. however, Milly spent some time playing a browser game she showed me yesterday called MooMoo.io. I responded to a couple emails on my phone and I might have actually dozed off a bit before Mary Calhoun came by with a gift for Milly, which was really sweet of her.

I got the boys up for their 11:00 feeding. When I went to change their diapers, Fawkes surprised me with a monster muddy poop. I hadn’t smelled it or anything, which is strange, especially given how much there was.

We picked up Penelope and Adeline a little after noon and went to a pool and splash pad downtown across from the police station. I had taken Milly there once years ago and thought it might be fun to do again. I actually had forgotten that there was a pool, I guess because when she was two or three or whatever the big draw was the splash pad. Anyway, the girls swam mostly, played in the splash pad for a little while, then took a test to be able to swim in the deep end so they could go down a slide, which they really enjoyed. Fawkes, Phoenix, and I stayed under a shelter to keep out of the sun. They took turns napping and being fussy.

We were only there about an hour and a half. Amanda was picking Milly up a little after 2, so I wanted to make sure we were back in time for that.

I wanted to feed Milly some lunch but she insisted she wasn’t very hungry. She was playing with my phone when Amanda texted that she was on the way, which Milly didn’t tell me about until about a minute before Amanda got here. I was in the process of trying to take a couple more quick birthday pictures of Milly and Milly kept scrambling to get things, so I took a bag of things that needed to go back to Amanda’s out to Amanda and let her know that Milly was dilly-dallying.

The boys were awake after Milly left, so I figured I’d let them stay up until their 3:00/afternoon feeding. Phoenix decided the only thing that would make him happy was to be held until they ate. Of course, pouring formula and heating up bottles is very difficult to do one-handed, so there was a good bit of being upset at me. Fawkes ended up joining in, which was fun. I tried to stay zen about it.

Fawkes was pretty much out after (and during) the feeding. I could smell that Phoenix needed a change, so I went to do that. He had a clump of poop stuck right at his butt, so I was wiping that when he decided to play the part of a Play-Doh Fun Factory. Fortunately, the wipe was already right there, so I let him Fun Factory himself into the wipe. I couldn’t help but think about how he didn’t have any filters on there to make it into spaghetti. Oh, and he also peed while doing that. His little pecker was off to the left, so at least he didn’t pee on me.

Since they had been up earlier than usual, both boys went down pretty quick after the feeding, so I was able to start doing some work. That was most of the day. Other than all that, Tristen got home and I took a turn doing the take a shower/bathe the babies thing. Torrie stopped by and Tristen went to Target with her to get a few things for Milly’s birthday party Saturday.

I don’t think this year’s birthday was quite as exciting as destroying a booster seat, going to the beach and pool, and going to see Wonder Woman in the theater, but I hope Milly had a good time.