Because you guys will ask and I really don't want to repeat myself, here is how my birthday went:

1. I had planned on having a nice and relaxing lunch with Holly. I nearly got that. It was nice but not exactly relaxing as I was unsure if anything would settle well. Turns out it did, so win for me, except the entire process took 2 hours!
2. Due to the extra long lunch (90 minutes longer than usual) I had to work late, but decided not to work too late and make up 30 minutes on Friday, so that I might better enjoy my birthday. This was a mistake.
3. I tried to play Bourne Conspiracy while waiting for my folks to return home from errands, as we were to have a steak BBQ at their house to celebrate my birthday. It is now roughly 1700 hours and Emma is in a screaming hysterical fit. This continues until 2030 hours, with only a short break (15 minutes) while she's in the car.
4. Instead of 4 adults eating a steak BBQ it was 3 of us eating a cold steak BBQ while Emma screamed and wailed and turned beet red. It was then decided that we should go home and try to put her to bed in familiar surroundings. This means the planned cake and games time was canceled (maybe postponed).
5. We get home and Holly puts Emma to bed while I put in "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" in a vain attempt to salvage something of my birthday. Yay. I'm 31.

I didn't ask for much, and I stupidly allowed myself to be optimistic that I could have a nice dinner with my family and play either a lawn game or a board/card game. My birthdays don't usually turn out exactly as planned but none have bombed as bad as this one. No cake, no presents, no fun, only 4 hours of screaming that set me on edge and gave me a headache. Instead of being "the birthday-boy" I was "dad". Le sigh.