A Jen Too Many

Who would have thought a birthday party would cause so much trouble?

The girls just got home from a birthday party for the Little Girl Across the Street. LGATS knocked on our door Thursday night to give the girls their invitations. There was much excitement and rejoicing (and relief from me that she had invited both girls, not just Oldest Girl Child) until I realized that the party was today. Saturday. Luckily at 4 p.m., because it was too late to go out shopping for a present that night.

I could have taken them shopping Friday night, but my sweet husband and I were planning on going out to dinner with some other couples. Everything got canceled, however, when Youngest Girl Child came down with pink eye. The doctor had assured us that she would be able to go to the party (she would no longer be contagious after three doses of the prescription eye drops), but I was not so sure when I put her to bed Friday night. She was pretty miserable and her eye was looking much worse, even after two doses.*

This morning she woke up with her poor little eye so swollen and red that I was sure I was going to be dealing with a broken-hearted little girl when OGC went to the party alone, but things improved remarkably once she had the third dose.

By the time she got her fourth dose of eyedrops she was looking only slightly like someone had punched her in the eye. So, thinking everything was going fine now, off we went to the store, all three of us, the YGC, the OGC, and me.

Well, OK, I admit, I am experienced enough by now to know not to expect "everything to be fine." Whenever is everything fine where kids are concerned? But I did at least think it was only going to be the normal quantity of maddening behavior from them.

They started on each other in the car. Truly nasty attacks on each other. Mean tones of voices, harsh words - they were rapidly degenerating to the level of "You're ugly and stupid and nobody loves you!" category of verbal assaults when I stepped in and announced that any further behavior along this line would lead to turning around. We would go home, we would not buy presents, and furthermore there would be no birthday party.

They were quiet after that, except for the crying. Pouting is silent, so I guess that doesn't count. Especially if I avoid looking in the mirror at them.

When we got to the store they went nuts. Every toy we saw they wanted. They weren't looking for a birthday present. We were Christmas shopping! When I finally yanked their attention back to LGATS my little Bobbsey twins settled on the same toy. No, not one from the two of them. The same toy, twice. The only difference was that one toy dog was brown and the other was white.

I didn't like it, but I try to allow them to make their own decisions as much as possible, so when couldn't distract either of them to one of the other fascinating toys I shrugged and took them off to select pretty bags to put the presents in, and birthday cards to tuck in with the presents.

Second verse, same as the first... Identical bags. Identical cards. I'm afraid I lost my temper at that point and insisted they at least have different cards.

And then we checked out and I discovered that the dogs, which were marked on the shelf as $4.88, actually rang up as $14.88. Allow me to emphasize - FourTEEN, not four. Granted, I was certainly unhappy about the price, but the fact that I could use this as a way to leverage getting something different (from each other's choice) was certainly a factor in returning the pups on the spot and getting my money back.**

I decided to have our do-over at the dollar store. I warned the girls before we went in that I wanted each girl to choose something different from what her sister was giving, and gave them permission to choose more than one gift. It took several minutes of trying to drag them away from playing, but we finally walked out of there with five toys each - 10 in total, not one duplicate among them. Except for the two pairs of earrings - one pair came with a pretty purse OCG picked out, and the other came with a glitzy tiara YGC chose. I figured that worked as different enough.

It was getting late in the afternoon by this point, so I was moving a little quickly as we headed out of the mall.*** Concentrating on just getting out and getting home, I was not thrilled to realize the way I was going was blocked by a large group of people. People? No - a parade. A parade? In the mall? Wait a second - what had the guy on the loudspeaker just been going on about? Someone special?

I looked down and saw a red hat bobbing along. It was Santa!

"Hey, look guys, it's Santa Claus!" OGC looked dubious. YGC bounced up and down.

The parade came closer, and I could see the red hat more clearly. It was not Santa. It was a Stormtrooper.

No. No, surely not. If this wasn't Santa what the heck was it? And wasn't this going to be fun - explaining to the girls that Mommy was mistaken and there was no Santa at the mall today?

I looked again. There was another red hat, visible for a moment then gone again. And ... Yes!! It was Santa! Woohoo! Mommy reputation - saved! Disappointment and tears - averted! The whole parade stopped for a moment to let the small brass ensemble change songs, just as Santa drew up opposite us. He looked at the girls and waved at them. YGC bounced some more and chattered excitedly about Santa. OGC looked in the general direction of the floor and scowled slightly, drawing closer to me.

And then the parade moved on and a woman dressed in generically festive Santa Helper clothing gave the girls two paper reindeer headbands to wear, while giving them a sales pitch about coming to see Santa and get their pictures taken. OGC's scowl deepened at this, and she refused to let me fix the headband for her.

Now, OGC has never been comfortable with Santa. She flat out refuses to go near him. She feels the same way about any costumed character. The Easter Bunny? No go. Mother Goose, who was at her school when she registered for Kindergarten? Absolutely not. She wouldn't even go close enough to get the coloring book Mother Goose was giving away. I had to take it for her. So, I asked her if she was still afraid of Santa.

She thought about it. "No. I just feel shy around him."

I suppose that's a little better than being stark terrified.

We climbed in the car and OGC fixed her headband all by herself, which she was very proud of. Then the girls pretended to butt heads like fighting deer, and then YGC reached out and ripped off one of OGC's horns. Then OGC sobbed, and YGC offered to give OGC her own intact headband in recompense, and OGC refused and continued sobbing. I persuaded OGC to accept the offer and the apology, and we made it home without too much further trouble.

Then we counted the minutes until it was time to go to the party and I watched them cross the street. It was wonderful - a child-free house - for about an hour, and then I started wondering when they were coming home. It was getting dark after all. After two hours I went to get them, expecting tears of protest. They greeted me with cries of, "Mommy! Why didn't you come to get us!"

*sigh* That's all I need - the LGATS's dad thinking I'm an irresponsible parent who can't be bothered to pick up my children at a reasonable time. I forbore to point out that the invitation had a start time, but no end time for the party.

Bedtime is in one half hour. I can't wait. After yesterday and today, teaching Primary tomorrow should be a piece of cake.****
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*Accompanied by much screaming and tossing her head around to try to escape us. I had to pin her to hold her still. Even then the only thing that really worked to calm her down enough to actually get the medicine into her eyes was the warning that she couldn't go to LGATS birthday party without taking the medicine.

**Yes, I know I could have insisted they give the dogs to me at the marked price, but I just didn't want to deal with that right then - and I really did want to get rid of the stupid things.

***Naturally I had forgotten where the store was, and parked on the opposite side of the mall.

****My primary class - 10 kids. Equal distribution of boys and girls, but three of the boys are ADHD. It makes for an exciting two hours.