Thursday, December 18, 2008

Jesus loves the little penguins...

Tomorrow is Spark's "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" party at school. Anytime the words "preschool" and "party" arrive in the same sentence, I get a little antsy.

First, let me just say that I am so thankful that Spark's school has a new party policy. Instead of posting a signup sheet to the door of the classroom and having the parents sign up to bring something for parties, this year they decided to have everyone contribute a set amount at the beginning of the year for a party fund. Then, for each party, one mom is assigned to acquire all the items for the party. This seems like a much simpler solution than several people scavenging for strange requests from teachers. I speak from experience, of course.

It seems every year, the "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" party sneaks up on me. I mean, yeah, I know Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of our Savior, but December has to be the most incredibly fast month in the world. So, I get sort of blind-sided by the "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" party.

Last year, I signed up to bring one small item for the party: the cupcakes. More specifically, the "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" cupcakes. Just a teensy little thing, right? WRONG. Cupcakes are the magical centerpiece of a birthday. Even if kids don't like them and won't eat them or just lick on the frosting a bit, the cupcakes are what matters most. Because I was about two-thirds of the way through my gestational period with Flower (aka, fat and bloated), I decided to order the cupcakes from a local bakery. I checked with the bakery, and they only needed about 48 hours notice. Well, guess who forgot to order the cupcakes? Guess who totally forgot about the cupcakes?

That's right! I forgot Jesus' cupcakes. I realize this when I am sitting at my desk at work. It's 11:45, and I'm looking at my calendar. I had plans to go to the party all along. I open the calendar notice, and there in the description it says, "Bring 14 cupcakes." Ohhhhh, yeah, that was smart. Put the cupcake reminder in the calendar entry for the DAY OF the party.

At this point, of course, there is no way or time to make any homemade cupcakes, hand-decorated with little Happy Birthday Jesus messages or little baby Jesus figures. There's barely time to make a backup plan. Instead, I found myself cruising around town during one of the most hectic times of the year, looking for cupcakes, anything, I could turn into Happy Birthday Jesus cupcakes by 1:00. 

The first two places I went were out of cupcakes. That's right! Can you believe it? Out of cupcakes? What bakery just runs out of cupcakes?? 

In these kinds of self-induced stressful situations, I find myself calling my mom. I'm on my cell phone, tearing out of the local grocery store's parking lot, wondering where I'm gonna go next to find some cupcakes. She has the brilliant idea of trying Target. So, still on my cell phone, trying to avoid hyperventilating, I swerve around and into the Target parking lot. I raced into the store, hoping to find cupcakes as it was now 12:38. Lo and behold, I found some mini-cupcakes there, a pack of 16, with bright blue icing and little penguin ring toppers. Not exactly Happy Birthday, Jesus, but I have a feeling that Jesus loves some penguins. They're cute, festive and the kids loved them.

Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus!

When the Easter party rolled around, I decided to do something very sane and signed up for egg-shaped cookies...


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