An Eighth Birthday! (Murphy's Law included)

My second daughter is eight years old today, and I don't even know how that could be possible. She sure is excited, though!


It's been an exciting day already. After her dad left for work, but before school, she started crying that it hurt when she went to the bathroom, and she had stomach-flu-like symptoms. (That's all the further I'll go into that!) So we had to go to the doctor. I'm crossing my fingers the whole way in, because she wanted a sleepover for her birthday, and I've got four little kids coming over after school. It took a LOT of coordinating with all of the parents, so I could pick their kids up, and I do NOT want to have to do it all again in reverse. I get the birthday girl to town, and realize I don't have my wallet. No money for the co-pay. Could the doctor's office give a girl a break? Well, no, sorry. Can't get any help there. So I swung by the bank, where they actually know and trust me, and grab 20 bucks outta my kids' savings. Nice, eh? =/

Then to the doctor's, where there really wasn't anything wrong with her, other than a bit of stomach-flu-like symptoms. No UTI or anything, so a little Tylenol in her, and back to school. I'm crossing my fingers here that she raises her hand in time to make it to the bathroom. Something's gotta look up, right? And back home, to a house that needs vacuuming and a cake that needs decorating. In a rare moment of empathy, my three-year-old took an early two-hour-nap. In fact, she's still sleeping, and if she wakes up sick, I won't be surprised. Still, I know how to make an opportunity stick, and I swung around the house with the vacuum like I was selling Hoovers. Then I attacked the cake and half an hour later had this:


Not too shabby, eh? It was indeed fast and furious piping around that Barbie insert. Then I cut up some brownies to pass out at class later, and sat down to blog. lol! Sometimes you just gotta do something for yourself. I have 45 minutes before I have to swing into a gift store and try to find appropriate give-out gifts for 18 seven-year-olds. And all morning this rhyme has been in my head:

A dillar, a dollar,
a six-o'clock scholar,
why did you come so soon?

You used to come at ten o'clock,
and now you come at noon.

I heard this rhyme probably six years ago, when my oldest was watching Sesame Street, and I've puzzled on it off and on ever since. I know it was politically a slam at someone at the time it was created. I'll research it a bit when I get a chance. But as to how it applies to today, I keep coming back to it, and I think I understand now. It runs along the lines of my personal credo, "Fake it 'til you make it." A perpetually late person sails in even later with a, "Whew, I'm here early!" kind of attitude. I feel like I've been living this I've-got-it-together lie since the three-year-old was born. I run around and try to pull together parties and sleepovers and dishes and bill paying, and whenever I'm around anyone, I slow down, smile, and act like it's a breeze. I'm just faking it, people. I'm going to slow things down soon, honest. I really have to. This is crazy.

In the meantime, though, this was the fastest blog entry in history, and tomorrow I'll have pictures of seven-year-olds carving pumpkins and decorating cookies. Rock on, you moms! What would happen without us?