DANE: Are you going to blog about why you haven’t blogged in a week?
ME: That would be a boring post. “Hi. I’m lame.” The end.
DANE: What about your birthday? Our anniversary? That’s not lame!
ME: They also didn’t keep me from blogging, but okay.
DANE: It’s called lying. No one will know.*

So. It was my birthday last week. Friday. I turned thirty. 30. Yes I did. (Like Diana says, I made very good use of my twenties.)

Dane took the day off work, which is always fun, and we… kind of did nothing. He suggested I disappear to the bookstore all day to drink coffee and read magazines (or whatever else it is that people do at bookstores when they’re not chasing toddlers and hunting for not-inappropriate chapter books).

I thought we might all go together to a farther-away bookstore instead, but by the time everyone was ready to go, Sadie had fallen asleep for a ridiculously-early nap (why do they do that?), so we stayed home and had quiet time before lunch.

In the afternoon we went to the nearby botanical gardens for, I don’t know, maybe an hour, until Sadie and Audrey both fell apart into little pieces all over the place and had to be carried back to the car. Yes, carried. Even though there was a stroller.

And lest you think we bored them to death looking at leaves, thus predictably eliciting the meltdowns: the botanical gardens have tons of kid-friendly stuff, including but not limited to a three-story treehouse, a garden full of musical instruments to play, and a running “stream” to splash in. Not boring. Tiring, maybe, but not boring.

Somehow we got them home, fed, in bed and asleep by 7:15—an entirely unexpected birthday present, resulting in much-happier toddlers the next morning.

Which was good, because the next morning was our tenth wedding anniversary. Yes it was. And we… kind of did nothing. But it was a relaxing long weekend of nothing. I’ll take that.

So what have you been up to?**

* Well, now you will.

** No, you don’t really have to say. I’ll just guess.