I do it all for the money

Right.

OK, I do it all for the kids, and yesterday was particularly horrid rewarding. When we planned Rebi's birthday party 10 days ago, there was nothing else scheduled for Friday evening. Plenty of stuff was scheduled for Saturday, but Friday was free and clear.

So, we invited Rebi's entire church class a couple of school kids and a neighbor or two, but who's counting? 13 of Rebi's closest friends and trusted confidants and geared up for 4 hours of singing off key Karaoke, broken glass all over the kitchen candy and treats, and a complete and utter disaster of beads of all sizes spread across the dining table earring and jewelry making. What's not to love.

Between Monday when we handed out the invites and Friday afternoon, Friday filled right up. Tyler had a birthday party to attend, and Evan and Dave were suddenly gearing up for a scout camp out. Of course, I was supposed to be monitoring all kinds of insanity fulfilling party games at home while Dave ran Ty around, which is hard to do when you're locked into a campground 15 miles from home. So, I tried to revamp the plan, thinking a mom could run him around with her child. No one we knew was attending the party.

Because I am a diligent mom, I promptly stopped thinking about the party dilemma around 4pm, at which point I decided I'd better start baking a cake so the girls had something to sing around. I measured and mixed while the children sat around doing nothing at all to put the final touches on cleaning up the perpetually messy house cleaned bathrooms and vacuumed. I tasted the batter and thought crap, what did I do wrong? this could use a little more sugar. So I added some, put it all in a pan in the oven, and started cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming relaxed on the couch eating bonbons. At 5:00, Tyler reminded me he had to leave for the party. Thank goodness for the birthday drawer. He ran upstairs and grabbed a cheap after Christmas discount item which all Christmas decorations had been removed from really awesome toy, stuffed in a refer to toy description really awesome bag and we ran out the door, completely forgetting the cake which was overflowing the pan and turning a dark charcoal black baking in the oven. I was gone no more than 20 minutes talking to other moms begging them to give my son a ride home 10 minutes dropping Ty off, only to walk into the house and smell the odor of burnt sugar, happily smoking on the bottom of the oven aroma of birthday cake.

I pulled it from the oven, took one look at Rebi, and put her, Nate and Ellie in the car to go buy something edible beautiful to serve the party guests. While at the store, Dave conveniently called to beg, plead and cry ask me to please pick up plates, cups, spoons, forks, serving spoons, bowls and napkins so that the scouts could eat dinner. It seems their never be prepared fearless scout leader forgot a few essentials. I was of the opinion that at T minus 20 minutes and counting for 13 girls to show up at my house, they could damn well eat off their laps with their fingers figure out how to survive without that stuff. However, when Dave feels strongly enough about something to actually shed tears, I often cave completely with sighs of frustration find it in me to help him out. And, I was already at the grocery store. And we had found a lovely cake, which put me in a slightly better mood. The guy with 26 items and a checkbook in the express lane didn't even make me want to rip his cart from his hands, propelling his groceries across the store, then shove him away from the register in an attempt to be home before the party guests arrived and with enough time to place the cake on my own tray to make it look homemade sigh in frustration.

So, I quickly purchased stuff for the scouts, mistakenly assuming that Dave would be finding a way out of the locked campground and would therefore be able to pick Tyler up from his party, leaving me to the agony pleasure of 13 13-year-olds and Karaoke. Naturally, I was wrong. A cold wind blew through to door when Dave barreled in, got all of the paper goods and a coat for my equally unprepared and 3% body fat rendering him incapable of heating himself in temperatures lower than 60 degrees son. He was gone again before any psycho teenagers girls arrived. Of course, being mom of the year, by 7:30 I had forgotten Tyler was even gone, so I wasn't worried at all about who was picking him up. After all, what parent doesn't mind when a party guest stays an hour, give or take 10 minutes a few minutes past the end of the party. And imagine the surprise on her face when one of the girls' moms showed up to drop off more Karaoke supplies only to find me rushing out the door to pick up my son, seemingly leaving the girls completely unattended and in an extreme state of hyperactivity modeling their best behavior and utmost responsibility to remain calm while I picked up Tyler.

Eventually, the night ended. I think everyone was occupied for a few hours had a blast, expressing that it was the best birthday party they had ever been to. I will be cleaning up beads for the next 10 years.

There is a possibility I will also add photos to this post, but I wouldn't hold your breath or anything.