Birthday weekend recap (part 2 - dinner with friends)

After we'd absorbed all the...uh...culture we could stand at Venice Beach, we decided to head out out of the westside. We had plans to meet up with friends for dinner in Monrovia to celebrate Ramy's birthday. A couple of weeks ago, I had asked Ramy how he wanted to celebrate his birthday. My darling husband never wants any fuss over his birthday, so I had anticipated his response - "oh, something low-key." So we made plans for a low-key dinner with our friends Madeline, Paul, Vincent, and Brent (and their respective families). Ramy hates attention so much that he would actually have preferred that no one there actually know it was his birthday, but, alas, Maddie actually keeps up with that kind of thing. I'd originally wanted to have it at Ramy's favorite restaurant, Gaucho Grill, but Vincent clued me in to the fact that it had closed. So Ramy ended up choosing Claim Jumper, which ended up being a good idea, because it's a family friendly kind of place. With a 4 month old, a 2 year old, 2 three year olds, and a six year old, family-friendly was a good choice. I even went out of my way to be sure that he got his free dessert but that they didn't sing to him (nothing could be more mortifying to my sweet husband).

Although Ramy enjoyed his birthday and getting to hang with his closest pals, it was definitely Rebecca who enjoyed the gathering the most. She absolutely adores Madeline and Paul's daughters Ashley and Rachel. Rebecca didn't want to eat her dinner, because she kept wanting to go over and say something to Ashley or Rachel. Rachel and Ashley are such great little girls. They're super-sweet to each other and to Rebecca. They play together well and look out for Rebecca and get that she's smaller than them. Rebecca had such a good time with her gal pals.



Rebecca isn't quite so keen on little boys. She didn't have too much interest in playing with Matthew (to be fair, I think Matthew thought he had better things to do than to hang with three girls). She did mention to me later that Ashley and Rachel and she are "neetle [little] girls" and that Matthew is "a neetle boy." I was thankful for the recap. She went on to tell me that Miles is "a baby. He sad and sneepy [sleepy]," which was why he was crying so much at dinner. Rebecca was quite concerned about Miles' crying. When Rachel hit her face on the edge of the chair and cried, Rebecca was also deeply troubled and needed to analyze the situation to see if she needed to assist. She watched Rachel cry and got teary-eyed herself, had the lower-lip quiver going for a couple of seconds, and then seemed to realize that Rachel was going to survive and pulled herself back together.



When the neetle girls and boy were getting a little rambunctious and Baby Miles had dissolved into a full-on cryfest, and since we'd already finished dessert, we decided to head over to Maddie and Paul's house so that the girls could play together some more whiel we chatted. Rebecca had an awesome time. The girls rode ride-on toys in the entryway, then Ashely and Rachel took Rebecca upstairs to play in the dress-up clothes. Later the girls all came down in various costumes to give us a fashion show. Rachel and Ashley were Disney Princesses, and they dressed Rebecca up in all sorts of scarves and sunglasses.



The three girls had such a good time together. Rebecca had absolutely no desire to leave them, even though she was exhausted. She did, however, manage to stay awake long enough to cram a couple of dozen raspberries into her mouth in less than 2 minutes before we left. Maddie probably thinks we never feed our child, so she gave her a baggie of raspberries for the ride home. Rebecca was asleep before we got onto the street!




It was a great day. I hope Ramy enjoyed his birthday. It was a fun day with the family and good friends and I think it was low-key enough that it didn't weird him out with too much attention!