I Done Good

OK. This has been a crazy week. Make that month. My 7 year old daughter is losing teeth faster than I can page the tooth fairy to get her butt over here. My "baby" boy turned 5 this week. F-I-V-E. I turned down a job. I - potentially - lined up an opportunity for another one. I threw a birthday party that included a large group of 5 and 6 year old boys beating each other with Lightsabers. Crazy month.

But I done good. (Please note the sarcasm is that statement - I know it's not grammatically correct...) Those of you who know me well know that, well, I'm a little bit of a control freak. And I don't handle stress well. And I'm a disaster zone in the kitchen. So a birthday party where I have to keep kids occupied, execute games, and provide food, all while trying to keep anyone from bleeding or having to go to the hospital...well, that's enough to put me right over the edge.

It started with the Lightsaber Pretzel Sticks. I went online (mistake #1) to find ideas for the party. One idea seemed cool, and simple enough: you dip large pretzel sticks on white chocolate (tinted green or blue), and make "lightsabers." You wrap a little bit of aluminum foil around the handle and - voila! Edible lightsabers! So I bought all the supplies and went to work. Batch #1 was melted in the microwave, per the instructions of the box of white chocolate. It sort-of melted, but was really clumpy. The lightsabers looked more like green caveman clubs. Batch #1 was done double-boiler style. (I had had success with this making buckeyes at Christmas.) You get a pot of boiling water, and put another pot on top. The top pot holds the chocolate. This batch never melted at all - just clumped up, and then burned. Batch #3 was done straight-up in a single pot, low temperature. on the oven. Burned, burned, burned.

NORMALLY this would send me into fits. But yesterday? I said "OK, we're just going to have plain pretzel sticks." And then I cleaned up the mess. I'm fairly certain Bart thought I was running a high fever or something.

Then - during the party - it was time for a game. But the kids all said "We don't wanna game! We want to lightsaber fight some more!" Is that mutiny in the ranks? What about my SCHEDULE??? Again, normally I would have freaked out. But I didn't. I let them play for a bit, and then suggested we do a "Jedi Test" (also known as a "game".) Smoooooooooooth sailing.

The pizza arrived 45 minuted early. Did I freak? No way Jose - I just put the boxes in the oven. (The oven was turned off, in order to avoid a repeat of an ill-fated moving day way back in 1999.)

We didn't even get to the final game, and we didn't get to open the presents. Hysterics? Nope. We just opened the presents later (which I prefer anyway), and now we have a fun little space-like water bottle filled with candy. (I'll probably bring this up to the school or something.)

I never remembered to put out the fruit that I had my sister bring with her. 4 kids didn't show. I didn't get a chance to put balloons on the lamp posts in the neighborhood. The glow necklaces didn't work 100% perfectly. I didn't get a chance to blow dry my hair out all pretty - had to go with a ponytail instead. I forgot to put out the glow straws when we handed out drinks. I ordered too much pizza. I wanted to touch up the paint in the foyer. I didn't get around to really cleaning up the backyard.

So I just let it go. Let. It. Go. Those of of you who know me well KNOW what a huge, gigantic, enormous step this was for me. I put on a party - at my house - and didn't lose it a single time during the day. Not once.

And you know what? CHASE HAD A GREAT TIME. I think all the kids had a great time. So we'll be eating pizza for 3 days - we like pizza. The glow necklaces worked good enough. I put the glow straws in the goodie bags. Everyone found the house without balloons on the lamp posts. We had plenty of kids in attendance. No one looked at my hair. The foyer and the yard were non-issues.

I let it go - it wasn't perfect, but it was good. So I won't be the talk of the class for throwing the "Best Birthday Party Ever". And newsflash: my house is NOT a showroom. And I like to wear ponytails. I won't even see most for these people ever again after Pre-school anyway. Perfection is over-rated anyway, right?

I think as Moms, we get so wrapped up in doing it all "perfectly." Like our kid will be scarred for life if Darth Vader himself doesn't show up at the party. How much do you remember from your 5th birthday? If anything, you're probably like me - you remember cake and friends. Don't remember where it was, do you? Or what you did? Or even who was there? Me neither. I guess I'm trying to make a point in here somewhere, something other than "I didn't lose my mind yesterday." Let. It. Go. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. Most everything is.

My son can look back, look at the 65 pictures I took, and say "Hey Mom, you remember when we had that cool Star Wars party for my birthday?" And I will.

(And thank God - no more birthday parties until June!)