Sometimes balancing being a wife, mother, daughter, sister, employee, and everything else can be tedious. In order to maintain any semblance of balance, one must learn the fine art of multi-tasking. You see, men believe that a woman's ability to navigate a Starbuck's drive-thru while applying mascara and signing a month's worth of school permission slips is one of our greatest talents but in fact, it is more likely the capacity to create three handmade Halloween costumes, while making dinner, frosting 5 dozen pumpkin shaped sugar cookies, paying bills and mentally powering down enough to make the nightly transformation from housewife to whore long enough to keep her husband off of the sexy 22 year old intern at his job. This is the true sign of a successful multi-tasker.
Now when you are blessed with four children (as I have been), Halloween can be a bit of work. Couple that with the fact that my ONLY daughter's birthday is only days away from this "Spooktacular" holiday and my work load increases exponentially. Not only did I yearly have to make 4 costumes but I had to plan and implement a birthday party that does not conflict. Usually, all on the low, low budget of... well... little to no money.
To add to the usual chaos, the year my daughter was to turn 7, I was elected PTA President. That meant that I was in charge of the School's Fall Festival, which fell five days before Halloween and ON my daughter's birthday! Perfect! Just Perfect! But I handled things like a champ! I took lemons and made lemonade!
First things first, I pieced out portions of costumes from years past to make "new" costumes for the boys. (You know, the flannel shirt from last years hobo costume paired with a hockey mask become Jason from Friday the 13th) This way I could focus all of my efforts on my daughter, Devin's, costume. We decided on Cleopatra! (She looked beautiful and I didn't have to do nearly as much work as I had the 6 previous years!) Then, I explained to Devin that since her birthday fell on Fall Festival day, instead of a party we would go to the festival and then the whole family would meet at Grandma's and have cake and ice cream! (This would save me the price of a party) Oddly, this went over O.K. with her. I was so surprised! She did not seem the least bit put out. I was soooo relieved.
I spent the two weeks before the event planning and creating, after the children went to bed at night or before they woke up in the morning (not my best time). But everything worked itself out because the night of the festival went very smoothly. The silent auction raised money. Kids were appropriately afraid in the haunted house (it was behind the curtain on the stage). I had enough cake, pie, and strangely donut, donations for the Cake Walk. And the teacher reading the crystal ball in our cardboard fortune teller's booth did so well that her line was nearly as long as the haunted house's.
About every 1/2 an hour or so, I would have to take the microphone and proclaim costume or raffle winners, announce that there was a Blue Chevy El Derado with license plates BGPIMPN with it's lights on, or request that little Shevrolette Jackson meet her mother at the Popcorn Machine because it was time to go. And when I would do this my lovely little Cleopatra would tag dutifully behind, smiling proudly. (I could tell how she proud she was at that moment that I was her mother. Even at 7 years old she wasn't thinking about the fact that I hadn't been able to throw her a party, she was just happy that I was involved in her life and the activities at her school.) It was at this exact moment that I knew that my daughter would someday be a successful "multi-tasker". She would be able to "bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan"! Lost in my pride (and my announcement "Raffle Ticket #3567082 you have won 2 free scoops at Bressler's Ice Cream), I didn't immediately feel her tugging at my skirt. "Mom. Mom. Mommy. Mom", she pleaded.
"Yes, baby," I answered covering the microphone.
"I need to talk on the microphone," she stated sweetly.
I handed it to her, thinking this will be cute. I was sure she was going to proclaim, "I love my mommy!" or "I am 7 years old today!" but no. She took the microphone and said, "I would like to thank all of you for coming to my wonderful party. Thank you!"
No wonder she hadn't seemed upset. She had just been thrown the biggest party of anyone in the 1st grade. Luckily for me no one corrected her and for years she thought I had invited the entire school to her birthday party. I guess it was one of those times I really lucked out. I am just hoping that when she eventually gets married I can convince her to do so on the 4th of July, that way my husband and I might get credit for the fireworks. It's worth a shot, right?
THAT WAS THE SWEETEST STORY OF How Devin felt this was a very special party for her. She will fondly remember that family story.
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