Today was Z's birthday party. His actual birthday was in February but it's taken us this long to get our act together and plan a birthday party for him. We decided to have jumping at a nearby trampoline place and then cake and ice cream at our place afterwards. We figured this would be a way to accommodate everyone. Z gets what he enjoys and we aren't up until all hours of the night right before church on Sunday.
Well, as usual things start to go bad the day before. I wasn't able to get as much done as I wanted to on Friday and found myself very behind Saturday morning. I still had to get decorations, take Z in for a vision and hearing screening for school, clean the house, set out the party decorations and put together party favors plus pick up the cupcakes by noon. I was off like a crazy person and picked up several things and did several errands, including getting 10 mylar balloons for Z and the other kids at the party. I raced back to the house to start getting the house cleaned up and putting the decorations up with only an hour and a half before the party started. Way too close for comfort and the tempers were starting to rise.
I immediately started putting up decorations keeping it simple since Z likes to pull things down but I did manage to keep J from panic as I blew up a package of balloons for the floor. Brandon and I had J doing several odd jobs around the house (taking clothes to his room, putting dirty clothes in the laundry room, etc) while we ran around doing the major sorting and straightening. Suddenly J starts to melt down. He's totally upset that we are working him to death and is telling us that we are going to begin to draw blood. Now, here's where my mother of the year award begins to tremble. Instead of realizing that he is obviously over stimulated and ready for a break and realizing that it is very hot in the house and everyone is getting a bit short tempered I launch into "teach the kid a lesson" mode and begin to explain to J how he is really not being overworked and I am not expecting more from him than any other parent would expect from their child when they are expecting company. After a minor meltdown and quite a few tears order is restored and we move on.
Just then I hear a yell from Brandon and he goes tearing out of the house. Z has taken all 10 of the balloons we got that morning for the party and has ran to the backyard. Brandon tries to catch him but before he can get to him they are all floating gracefully into the tree next to our house and are artfully snagged on the telephone wire attaching our home to the local telephone company. My heart sank. Z was so thrilled to see his balloons floating there above our backyard., Brandon, not so much. Brandon looked at me, "We are never getting those balloons again." My heart sank, one more normal, everyday thing that everyone else takes for granted taken away from us. My eyes welled up with tears and I mourned. It was silly, really, they were just balloons, but for me it was one more thing we could not do. Dang it!
As we came inside J began to get upset again, "We're such a stupid family," he said,"I'm going to run away." Great, I thought, just what we need, more drama. I chose to ignore him and said something dismissive about how much I would miss him if he ran away and that every family is stupid at times. I even gave examples. About this time I realized we were late picking up the cupcakes. I sent Brandon out to get them and quickly tried to finish up the last few things I had to get done, one of which was dressing Z. I asked J to run upstairs and bring down a shirt from a specific area of Z's bedroom for him to wear. I realize, looking back, that I was asking for trouble. We were all hot, tired, out of sorts, short tempered, and barking orders. When J came down he had two long sleeve shirts and a shirt of Brandon's. I was so frustrated. I asked him how he thought this was a good idea to go to a jumping place on a hot afternoon in long sleeves? I ran upstairs to get another, more appropriate shirt for Z as I heard J in the downstairs saying how we really were a stupid family and how he was the most stupid and how he was going to run away. At this point I was considering it myself.
After retrieving a shirt for Z I came downstairs one again and realized that J was gone. Seriously, that fast, he was gone. I immediately called Brandon and asked how far away he was, luckily he was only two blocks away. I told him J had run away and to be on the lookout. I then grabbed Z, got him dressed quickly and ran outside to look for J. As I rounded the front of the church we live next to I could hear J yelling but could not see him I continued to yell his name and after a while realized he was coming around the opposite corner to where I was with Brandon and our neighbor keeping a cautious distance. J was screaming how much he wanted to run away. I realized that Brandon had the situation mostly in control and that I needed to see if there was a way to give J an out so I took Z back inside and called my mother-in-law to explain why we were going to be late to the gathering we had invited everyone to. God bless her, she is a saint. She offered to handle everything at the jumping place while we handled J. I then grabbed three ice pops. When J gets so upset he gets over heated and over wrought. What I have found is that if I can offer coolness and a mom's hug after the storm has passed sometimes it helps.
When I got back to where he was when I left Brandon had him in a hold as he was still yelling, although not as loud. I came over and offered J a hug and an ice pop and as I thought, he accepted them both. We sat for a while while Brandon took care of the car he had left running around the corner and made sure Z was ok. We were able to get into the car and make it to the party only about 20 minutes late. By all appearances we looked calm and happy. Little did anyone know that I had manged to lose my mother of the year award as well as almost lose my son in the same day. Not to mention the balloons.
So, why would a faithful God allow all this to happen? Well I don't blame Him. In all honesty I really think I made some pretty poor choices. I left way too much to do the morning of a party and then projected the stress to get it done not only on my spouse but my children as well. If I had better time management things would not have been as chaotic. I also think that there were several times along the morning where I could have stopped and realized that J was melting down slowly, bit by bit, and I didn't clue into it until it was too late. I needed to make sure that he was ok before my floor was swept, not the other way around.
All in all it turned out ok. I learned something and we ended up having a nice time with family and Z had a good birthday party. I'm just really glad birthday's only come once a year.
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