It's an old joke that people have kids so they can have an excuse to play with toys again. While certainly not the only reason - they can have a nice affect on your taxes, too! - it's definitely in the Top 10, and Isaac's 3rd birthday proved to be a veritable bonanza.

After getting a bunch of Crayola art supplies, including a cool desk/easel, from us on Friday, we threw him a party at Chuck E. Cheese on Sunday with a bunch of his cousins and friends, and we...I mean HE, made out like a bandit!

He got more than 60 Hot Wheels cars with two playsets (a huge service station and "freeway chase") that are now taking up our entire living room floor. He got a ton of NakNaks, a toy/game he discovered at daycare which I still have to figure out what the hell they are. They seem a tad Pokemonish, down to the "stack 'em all" concept of the game. He got his own CD player which, as cool as it is, I suspect will become the parental headache gift of the year. We asked for it, though! He also got this cool airboat that comes with a working "power drill" that allows him to take it apart and put it together with plastic screws and all. That one, so far, seems to be his early favorite.

Of course, there was also the usual assortment of clothes, including the coolest corduroy coat, and his first designer outfit: sweatshirt, jeans and winter coat from Rocawear! I-to-tha-saaco!

MY favorite gift was the Sesame Street Songs from the Street: 35 Years of Music, THREE CDs of classic Sesame Street songs. That's right, C is for Cookie, whenever I want to hear it! Going to have to burn copies for him to throw around while I hold on to the masters for safe-keeping. ;-)

Today's entry was brought you by the letter "Fuckin' A!"

The party was a fun but exhausting couple of hours of kids, pizza, kids, commotion and kids. Chuck E. puts on a good show, though, so it was worth the money and the exhaustion. Around 5:30pm, sitting around putting together the playsets (thanks, Frank!), watching the Jets make McNabb look good, and passing a still-cranky India around (it DOES take a village!), it felt like it was already midnight. I'm still tired and there just isn't enough coffee to make a difference.

In other news, the Jessica Rydill books arrived from Amazon.co.uk, so I'm looking forward to devouring The Glass Mountain once I'm done with Breath, Eyes, Memory which, while not blowing me away, is at least turning into a solid read. It's kind of like gangster movies where, after a while, the stories all seem the same. Makes me wonder what ever happened to Junot Diaz who, like Danticat, burst onto the scene with a collection of well-received short stories. I haven't read Krik? Krak! to make a proper comparison to Drown, which I did read, but I wonder if Diaz found himself slipping into the same rut Danticat choose to plow anyway and decided better of it.

Sometimes, I think it's better to step away until you have something new to say than to self-indulgently add your two cents to the overflowing jar of pennies. Of course, that's just MY two cents! ;-)