June 12, 2009

Evolution... or maybe not.

I have moved up in the world of mommyhood. Graduated, advanced, evolved! Yes, in my almost five years as a mommy, last night was a first.

I got in the car, drove a couple of blocks to the house of a sweet little teenage girl from our ward and brought her back to our house to babysit. And then we paid her!

Who knew this evolution process would make one feel older, more mature... almost like an adult! Hmm.. is that? Is that a wrinkle? Dang, I guess what everyone says is true. Experience really can age you!

After all, there are only so many times I can ask one of my two friends here to watch my kids for me. They have kids of their own after all.

And what would warrant such a dramatic leap up the mommy chain? Why, nothing less than my hubby's 29th birthday of course!

Speaking of evolution, I may have devolved a bit as well. Allow me to explain.

My, then fiance's birthday, six years ago now, was a big deal. I went all out. I stayed up really, really late pulling the little slips of paper out of hershey kisses and replaced them with little slips of paper that said things I loved about him. Oh that took forever! I taped them around a huge piece of foam board. In the middle, I asked him out on a date for that night.

Then I snuck into his apartment and decorated his kitchen while he slept on the living room couch just a few feet away.

He's always been a heavy sleeper. I try not to take it personally when the kids are screaming at night.

Anyway, during the day, I begged a friend to run out to Luke's favorite fast food place and get some lunch (since I didn't have a car) and she did (cause she's so nice like that). Then I gave it to him on campus. Perhaps I was going for the whole, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" advise.

That night I took him to P.F. Chang's (yummy chinese) and... somewhere in the vast and dark crevices of my memory, something tells me I had a gift certificate for that place and that's why we went... hmm, oh well. Then I took him to see "Finding Nemo" in the theatre since it had just come out.

Now for the devolvment I was referring to earlier.

Current day, Wednesday night, I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday and should I find a babysitter. He replied with a "sure".

The next morning, hubby gets up and gets ready for work. I crack my eye open as he leaves the room and I say, "Bye honey, Happy Birthday".

About 10:30am I finally had the kids dressed and fed, because I am so on top of things like that, and told the kids we were going to the store to get cake mix so we can make cupcakes for daddy and surprise him at work. But by the time I actually made it to the store, the thought of cooking the cupcakes from the cake mix box and cleaning up afterwards, then loading all the kids back up to take them to hubby's work just sounded WAY to exhausting.

So as I walked into Walmart, I headed over to the bakery where Savannah INSISTED we HAD to get daddy the already made, red and purple frosted with pink and red Transformer rings on them, cupcakes.

Fine. And for good measure I grabbed a couple boxes of donut holes for Luke's co-workers.
Oh ya, can't forget the bag of balloons I grabbed and blew up in the car so the kids could carry into the office.

The kids were making a ruckus and Savannah was faithfully offering everyone she saw a donut hole.

All was going well UNTIL... oh dare I share this next part?

A man walked out. A rather, well... um, robust man with a belly that some people might find similar to that of Santa Clause. Joseph, being the tactful, outgoing fellow that he is, looked up at the man and ever so loudly proclaimed, "Haha, you have a big belly!"

He must have shouted it at least five times since once was clearly not enough.

The office is quite obviously, NOT decorated right since there was no fake tree or table for me to hide behind. I think I did try to shrink my height a little though and not look at the man while Luke tried to tactfully hush that little monkey up.

After that I quickly I slunk out the door, trying to be as small as I could, and we headed home.

At home the kids demanded their cupcakes, since we figured it would be less painfully messy if we didn't let them eat them there in the office.

Yes, It was a rather brilliant and inspired idea. I do have those occasionally. All by myself.


Well, at least they were willing to share! Once all the frosting had been licked off.



That night, I made my giant leap and picked up the babysitter. We went out to eat and walked around a furniture store and drooled on all the things we couldn't afford. Just because we were spiteful that we couldn't afford them.

So, as I advanced and evolved on the mommy scale, I think that perhaps I may have fallen back a little on the wife scale.

Or maybe the scale is just wrong, or broken, or off balance!

Ya, I think I like that theory better.

2 super cool people speak:

ldsjaneite said...

I've heard that most guys really don't care--and that a lot would rather not have a big deal made about it. So, maybe you're evolving in both! I think that was still quite a feat for you, especially with the kids.

And that whole "way to a man's heart" thing - I learned in my BYU days that it had a part no one remembered to include: "he has to be inclined to have his stomach gotten to." Otherwise, it was just food to him and all my time and efforts were unknown, unacknowledged, and wasted.

Live 'n' Learn--and then get Luvs. :-)

Mama Smith said...

Sniff...my baby girl...is "growing up"....(smile)

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