Party Planning

My son, Blake turned 1 this week and my nephew turned 2, so it was decided to celebrate with a combined party. Sunday was the day and it should have and could have gone a lot smoother. Let's start with Friday.

Friday is the day that our check is supposed to come by mail. Well it did not come on this Friday which put a dent in my already planned out and written down weekend. Oh well, I told myself, it will come tomorrow, the mail is usually here by noon. Nope, not on this day.

Saturday the mail was suppose to be here by noon and it wasn't. This was a problem on so many levels. Here I was in Wyoming, I still had to go to Lowell, Alto, and Grand Rapids shopping for party supplies. So I came to the realization that my well-planned schedule would have to be rearranged. My business in Alto and Lowell had to be done by a certain time, so at 3:00 PM I decided to get those done and hope the mail would be there by the time I got back. As my friend and I loaded three small children into my mini-van, I spotted my mail-man, strolling down the sidewalk, carrying a bundle of mail and lugging his mail-carrier bag. I stopped what I was doing, crossed the street and said with a smerk on my dace, " Where have you been all my life? I have been waiting for you all day!" Well come to find out the poor man had been bit by a dog, in the calf, just a few houses form mine. He took a trip to the E.R. to get stitched and then headed off to continue his route, swollen and sore. He was three hours behind, but kindly dug through his stack of mail to find the pieces address to my household, all the while advising me that he was not suppose to be doing this. I am thankful that he did.

So now we have the check in hand so I call my significant other to tell him his check had arrived. After telling him about our mailman and his adventure, I got some not so great news. He had left his identification at the bank the previous week and it was now closed. What to do now? No I.D., banks closed, and no money for the party. Well my honey, being the smooth talker he is, managed to get the gas station near us to cash it for us, after an hour of pleading and convincing. As the man counted the cash, I out of pure curiousity, called my debit card. Come to find out I had had the funds for days and did not realize it! What a waste of time!

After dropping off a sarcastic boyfriend of mine, my friend, all three kids, and I were off. Destination: Party City, Dollar Tree, Once Upon A Child, and Target. Running around to all of these points of interest are hard enough, let alone doing it with three little "angels" whinging in the back seat. We were finished with this part of the night at around 10ish. It was off to my mother's house now, get the kids ready for bed and sleeping so we could set up and be prepared for the following day's events.

Once the children were in bed we were relieved, but still had plenty on our plates for the night. Next stop, Meijer. With list in hand, we circled Meijer grocery area for longer than necessary, exhausted and dragging our feet. Set-up took on the same pattern as the rest of our day had, S-L-O-W. Our heads did not hit a pillow until 4:00 A.M. With our children bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by the crack of dawn, Sunday began.

Party day. Glad to be done with the difficult tasks, we had only a few more last minute errands to run. These went much smoother than those of the days before. The party turned out beautiful and all of the kiddies had fun. Fatigued and over-worked we kept going through lunch, presents, cake, pinata, and clean-up. I fell into bed that night feeling sleep deprived, but accomplished.

My baby boys are a blessing, but I could not be happier that birthdays come only once a year.