The invitations are finally out for Ruby’s birthday party. The good news is that it’s at home, which is about $300 cheaper than any other party location. The bad news is that it’s going to be on Father’s Day, because I am a stupid dork.
You may recall that Ruby missed 99% of the last week of school? Yes. I hear that some of the kids who were there that week got an invitation to another girl’s birthday party. Now, Ruby and This Other Girl have the Exact Same Birthday, and every year for the past three or so, their parties have fallen on the same day. Every year, I plan to coordinate better next year with the Other Girl’s Dads, but once again, I forgot. So, Ruby didn’t get the invitation, whether because she wasn’t invited or because she was not at school to get it. But, I heard Other Girl’s Party is once again scheduled for the exact same Saturday Ruby and I chose for Ruby’s (after consulting with all our other friends and several other June birthday kids).
Confronted with this information mere hours after I pressed the “submit order” button for Ruby’s invitations, I swore loudly and creatively for a while. Then, I decided the gracious thing to do would be to reschedule Ruby’s party, so we did, for the next day, a Sunday. After I carefully crossed out and re-wrote the date on these very pretty, custom invitations, it dawns on me that the Sunday in question is Father’s Day. This may also cost Ruby a few guests. Aargh, as Rod would say, but I give up. It'll have to do.
Morals of the Story: 1) Don’t have a summer birthday. It sounds like a good idea, but it means no one comes to your party. 2) Don’t share a birthday with someone in your class at school. 3) Get a parent who’s a little more with-it calendar-wise than I am.
Moving on, the kids are in day camp this month, and thankfully, they both seem to like it. There is little worse than spending hundreds or thousands on a camp that your kid doesn’t like, except maybe paying for a fun camp that your child ends up being too sick to attend. This one is fine arts camp, a loose theme involving art class, tumbling, drumming, “culture,” etc. A huge number of their neighborhood friends are also there, and it’s like one big party from 9 to 2.
Carl seems a little more tired this week, maybe because there’s no rest time at midday like there is at Pre-K. He is also unhappy that I want him to wear underpants (every day!) against his will. He wants to play with his best and most incorrigible friend every day after camp, and then they end up fighting, but somehow this doesn’t tell him that the play dates are a bad idea. I am dying to share my story about him from this morning, but it might be a bit embarrassing to Future Carl. I will merely say that I was able to preserve his presumed future ability to create my grandchildren and convince him that tying the drawstring of one’s shorts to one’s penis is a no-no, all within a single panicky minute in the camp parking lot.
Tonight, my kids decided they would rather go with their friends to have sloppy joes in a church basement than hang out with me. I attribute their eagerness to leave to their unfamiliarity with both sloppy joes and church. Still, I am beginning to feel at times less necessary to them than I once was. So, before they come home cranky and hungry, I am having a peaceful happy hour with you and the pesky cat next to me, and the mortgage amortization calculator (a girl can dream of being debt-free, can’t she?)
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