Crafts Are Not My Calling!

Today was a very stressful day. When I tell you why, you will either laugh and think I'm joking or think I'm being dramatic, but nevertheless, it was stressful! For some reason I signed up at the beginning of the school year to head up the Valentine's party for Ava's class. I had no memory of doing so until last week her teacher said "Now, you remember you are coordinating the Valentine's party next week? Here are some names of the other moms that would like to help. Just give them a call." I guess at the time of "Class Party Coordinator" sign ups I was big pregnant and of the mindset that this would be a good idea and not hard at all with a 3 month old baby and a million other things going on in life. So, I smiled at Ms. Kristin and said, "Of course! Sounds great!" Thus the stress began. First of all, I am not a great delegator. I would much rather just do things myself not because I am a snob and think that I will do it better than everyone else, but because I absolutely hate calling people on the phone (especially people I don't know) and asking them to do things. It's right up there on my list with fundraising and dental visits. Well, I sucked it up and called. I delegated the responsibilities of paper plates, juice boxes, brownies, and fruit. I decided to handle the pizza and the craft. Yes, I had to plan a craft. How hard could it be, right? Let's skip ahead to today, past the week of fretting over the craft and going through about seven different ideas and stressing out over not being able to find white paper sacks at any of the five stores I went to. Let's just forget all that and get to today.

I woke up with my stomach in knots about this party. Honestly, what it all boils down to is my inherent need to please others. The thought of being judged and looked down upon because of a less than stellar Valentine's party for a group of two year olds was totally freaking me out. Luckily, the fabulous Abby watched Molly Kate so I didn't have to worry about that. So after spending the morning freaking out (again) about the craft and the pizza and how it was all going to work, I just decided to forget it and go to the party. We started the craft and it seemed good enough. Little heart shaped stickers on a foamy paper thing. Easy enough, right? Well, apparently I gauged the time for a craft like this based on my two year old. Ava will sit and work on a craft for hours. Literally, I have to pull her away from things like this. The class of two year olds was a little different. About three minutes into the craft the majority of the kids were bored and were up and running around. Alan was bringing the pizza for me since all the pizza places in Lubbock don't open until 11:00 (yes, I called them all) and I had to be at the school at 10:30. I was justing staring at the clock waiting for him to arrive as I felt all the other moms staring at me wondering what I had planned next for this delightful little party, because surely I had planned more than this craft. There had to be a game or something. But no, no games were planned. I called Alan at 11:04 and he was on his way with the pizzas. Praise God! By 11:12 he had still not arrived. I knew something was wrong. It does not take 8 minutes to get from CiCi's to Lakeridge Methodist church. I called him again and he said, "Where are you? I'm walking all over this huge school asking where the 'frog' room is (that's the class that Ava's in) and asking where the Valentine party is and people are looking at me like I'm crazy!" He had gone to Taylor's school with the pizzas. Their class parties are tomorrow and there is no "frog" room at her school. The laugh over this was by far the highlight of my day! So, Alan arrived with the pizza, we fed the kids lunch and cleaned them all up and I was done. I was so glad when they started getting the kids' nap mats out. Had I known that the teacher was going to chisel out an hour and a half of their day for my wonderfully coordinated party I would have been a bit more prepared. It's nice to know now that coordinating a party consists of more than arranging for someone to bring juice boxes and brownies. I just wish I had known all of this yesterday! I did learn one thing from all of this. Next year I will simply sign up to bring juice boxes. I can absolutely handle that. I don't think I could take any more stress over planning parties.