How to Turn 41

1. Sleep in a little bit while your husband gets up with the kids.

2. Don't sleep in too much because he still has to go to work.

3. Stumble out of the bedroom in your robe and sit down in the family room so your 19-month-old can sing "Haaaaa Bird-ay a Ooooo." Despite the yearning of every cell in your body, don't leave to make coffee. Let your 4-year-old bring presents and oooh and ahhhh over the butterfly soaps and the cool commuter mug that he picked out himself because it had raised rubber bumps all over it.

4. Be impressed that the 4-year-old wrote "MAMA YOU'RE THE BEST AIDAN" in shaky 4-year-old letters all by himself on the birthday card.

5. Hugs and kisses all around.

6. Make coffee, drink out of new commuter mug.

7. Keep 4-year-old out of school so you can take both kids to the best pumpkin patch in Northern California.

8. Put kids in a little red wagon, give them pumpkins to hold and take some cute pictures.

9. Pull kids in wagon to the nursery where there is a dusty, forgotten shelf with 5 old Lionel train cars. Leave wagon outside, with pumpkins and bag in it. Assume no one will take wagon because it has pumpkins and bag in it. Take wallet, camera and cell phone out of bag because you're not a complete idiot. Leave keys in it because you are a little bit of an idiot.

10. Wait around for 15 minutes while 4-year-old ignores the pumpkins, the choo-choo train, the jumpy house and all the halloween decorations and plays with the 5 old Lionel train cars. Feed pumpkin muffin to 19-month-old.

11. Pull 4-year-old away from dusty shelf and return to the sunlight. Discover that wagon with pumpkins and bag is gone. Wonder who would take a bag full of diapers and wipes (and keys).

12. Ask every worker at patch if they've seen your bag. Continue to feed pumpkin muffin to 19-month-old to get his cooperation. Finally find wagon, with pumpkins and bag still in it, about 20 feet away from where you left it and in the opposite direction of the way you went to search for it. Give into oldest son's demands and buy him his own pumpkin muffin.

13. Get kids into car; call sister to tell her you'll be a little late for lunch. Hear oldest son give entire muffin to youngest son after eating off just the top of it.

14. Look into back seat, see youngest child with about 3 inches of orange pumpkin muffin crumbs on his lap, and the rest on his chest, the seat and the floor.

15. Meet sister for lunch, wrestle youngest son off table, educate oldest son once again on the physics of using a straw and why it's a mistake to tip the cup while you're drinking from a straw.
16. Eat really good chicken Cobb Salad.

17. Open present from sisters - get very excited about new iPod (YES!).

18. Assure 4-year-old that the iPod is nice, but still not as cool as the commuter mug he gave you that morning.

19. Return to car, find $50 parking ticket for parking at a WHITE curb. Let very nice sister grab it and say she's going to fight it.

21. Drive home, realize you've continued to listen to "Martha Stewart's Playtime" on the CD player half an hour longer than you needed to because both boys were fast asleep as soon as you pulled away from the curb.

22. Get home, lay boys down, relax for a little bit.

22. Get boys up, let little one play in the driver's seat of the car while you vacuum the pumpkin muffin carnage from the backseat. Note that it's unusual, given your fairly low standards, that a mess is bad enough to make you pull the vacuum from the house and clean it the same day it was made.

23. Pull out box of old Halloween decorations. As you hang a skeleton from a plant, listen to oldest son tell an original Halloween tale: "Once upon a time, there was a skeleton hanging from a plant. But then the wind blew so hard it blew him off the plant. But then the werewolf came and ate the skeleton up. But then the bats came and ate the whole world. Hahaha! That's scary, isn't it Mama!"

24. Let oldest son put all the decorations on the bottom 2 feet of the sliding glass door.

25. Let youngest son transfer all the mummy heads from one ghost bowl to another ghost bowl.

26. Wait for husband to get home.

27. Decide to eat sandwiches, instead of going out to dinner, because we're all still full from lunch. Go to the small carnival in local mall parking lot.

28. Console oldest son after he learns that he is too short for the giant slide. Be silently grateful because you know as soon as he climbed the steps he'd chicken out and have to be rescued.

29. Let oldest son take husband into the fun house. Watch as the worker has to go rescue them from the hall of mirrors when they can't find their way through. Hope they make it out alive.

30. Stand at bottom of twisty slide at fun house to catch oldest son who is scared to go down. Reach arms out and get ready to catch oldest son. Withdraw arms with a little yelp when it turns out husband and son let another child go down first, and so the child you almost grabbed is not your child, but a 12-year-old boy perfectly capable of managing the slide by himself, thank you very much.

31. Figure out that youngest son is loudly identifying the children's roller coaster as an "Aaay-dee-bug! Aaay-dee-bug!" Try to tell him it's a caterpiller, but give up quickly.

32. Run into man with leg brace in parking lot who starts telling you about the wooden ferris wheels in Afghanistan that are hand-cranked. Get a little worried when he starts walking with your family. Feel guilty when he says he's an Iraq vet injured in the war, but still be suspicious.

33. Go to Coldstone Creamery and order coffee ice cream with hot fudge and brownies. Try to convince oldest son that Coldstone ice cream is better than the cones they were serving at the carnival. Fail.

34. Enjoy ice cream immensely. Dissuade youngest son from eating the styrofoam bowl.

35. Come home, blow out candles on cupcake that you can't eat after all that ice cream.

36. Open present of nice warm coat you've been needing for years (YES!). Note that coat has no pockets except chest-level ones. Note that you don't care if you look funny walking around with hands in chest-level pockets because you're 41 now, damnit, and it doesn't matter.

37. Pop open a Pumpkin Ale.