It turns out I'm crippled by indecision when the possibilities are endless. When I realized Alexis' birthday was going to fall on a Sunday, I knew we would have her party on the Saturday before, but I had no idea what to do for her on her actual birthday.
Hang out at home all day?
Take her somewhere fun?
Duct tape her to the ceiling and tell her we'd let her down as soon as she learns to sleep through the night without creeping up in my space and whispering "Momma, I'm not sleepy" at 2:00 am, thereby ensuring that I wouldn't get enough sleep AGAIN for the 2,555th night in a row?
The third option sounded like a fantastic idea, but it would have required me making a decision, so I deferred to the birthday girl.
The conversation started with a very open-ended question. It was, "You can do anything you want to do for your birthday, so what would be fun?" It was apparently too open-ended because the kid drew a blank.
I tried being a little more specific. "There are a lot of fun things to do in Pittsburgh. Is there one of them that you think would be good to do today?" Apparently that wasn't specific enough, though, because she still couldn't answer.
"OK. We could go to the zoo, to to a museum -- maybe the Children's Museum, eat somewhere fancy, go ice skating, go shopping ... anything! There are so many fun places in Pittsburgh. Where should we go?"
That one worked.
"I know! Let's go bowling!" she replied.
Way to dream big, kid.