This is my dad. He’s got a lot of hair. So, we all call him Sasquatch. Except for my four-year-old niece. She calls him Sad Squash. Because big words are sometimes hard to pronounce. Also, because she figured out that it makes us all laugh.
Dad just turned 60, and he threw himself a raging birthday party at his factory in Rhode Island, complete with a couple hundred guests and a bunch of bands. You know, as you do.
We decided to make a day of it, and meet up with our favorite photographer to get some family portraits done. “Hello there Lilian,” he said as he got in the car. “I’m your personal photographer.”
(At this point? He pretty much is.)
We scouted out an awesome location. The weather had been lovely all day. We were wearing coordinating (but not matchy-matchy) outfits. I had props. You know that means it started raining about 5 minutes after we got out of the car. Lots of rain. Buckets and buckets of it.
“Waaaaaah,” Lilian wailed, “I have terrible parents.”
We decided to cut our losses and head straight to the factory. Scott and I wandered around looking for a spot that was kinda industrial looking. Without, you know, looking too industrial. It was harder than it looked.
“Why don’t you use the photo studio upstairs?” my Dad suggested. Oh, yeah, we could do that.
I don’t know if we got anything all that great, but there is probably at least one photo of the three of us in focus. Bam. Christmas Card. Done.
My Dad asked me to sing a couple songs. Little did he know exactly what he had asked for…
Why yes, that is me wearing a fake beard and playing a guitar. I decided to honor my Dad in the best way I could. By wearing that ridiculous getup, and then singing a mashup that I made up using the theme song from Hair and the Jimmy Fallon version of Whip My Hair. I’m not sure how much my Dad liked my homage, but my step-mom thought it was freaking hilarious.
(She made me the fake-beard hat, so I knew she would probably be on board with it.)
We all had a great time at the party. At least up until the point where we realized that it was 6pm, Lilian had only had a 20 minute nap all day, and she was not a happy camper.
“Waaaaaah,” Lilian wailed, “Seriously. I have terrible parents.”
Kristian drove Lilian home, and I stayed behind to have my second angry orchard of the evening. (Scandalous!) Oh, and to hang out with my sister Christina. And dance like a crazy person. Kristian texted me a couple hours later to let me know that there had been a bit of a meltdown. And by “bit of a meltdown,” I mean “total, epic meltdown.” Mostly on Lilian’s part, but it sounds like it was pretty rough for both of them.
Lilian is so easy-going, sometimes I forget that even she has her limits. We should have planned better. We had a vague plan that involved her napping in the car on the way down. But when she only slept for 20 minutes? We should have figured something else out. Lucky for us, she was back to her normal, sunny self by the next day. Next time, we will have a better plan. At the very least, we will have a stroller in the car for her to nap in. Live and learn!
And, let’s be honest here. She’s fifteen months old. We could have planned the day out perfectly and she still could have melted down at the end of it. Why? Because: toddlers.
Happy birthday, Sad Squash!