It was a hectic time last week between having a blowout on my recently repaired car, getting engaged to my longtime girlfriend, hosting my daughter’s first birthday party and spending a night out with my family for my birthday. Getting engaged and celebrating Emery’s birthday were the two most exciting moments from last week, but preparing for each had me wanting to rip my hair out at the root.
The engagement came two Thursday nights ago. The event included candles, flowers, me down on one knee holding the ring and a web of lies to assure my fiancée Joanna would be out of the apartment so I could set the mood. Joanna was supposed to be spending the evening with her mother, but on Wednesday she threw the first – and certainly not the last – kink in my plan by telling me she was not leaving her apartment on Thursday.
Adding to my stress of purchasing the votive candles and candleholders, flowers and a vase to keep them alive and finding a box to hold the ring (we are using my grandmother’s engagement ring and it didn’t come with a box) I now had to come up with a plan to get her out of the apartment for 15 minutes while I moved things around, lit candles and made sure she walked in on the biggest surprise of her life. I eventually decided on the old “my car broke down and can you come and get me” routine. It worked and her exit gave me the time I needed.
The other snag in the night was after I called her to tell her my car was okay and I would meet her at the apartment. She told me she was hungry and wanted to go get something to eat. Of course I said that was fine because if I didn’t she would become wise to my game. The reason I didn’t want her to go get food though was because then I would have no clue as to when she would be back at the apartment and I didn’t want to light the candles too early.
It all worked out though when she called back two minutes later and said the restaurant she tried calling didn’t answer. I told her to meet me at the apartment and we would go get food together. She complied, walked in on the romantic setting and told me she wouldn’t marry me, which was her way of paying me back for lying to her about the broken-down car. Of course she immediately retracted her answer and all was well in our newly engaged world.
The next day I left work early to go set up for Emery’s birthday party at my mom’s house. Working in 100-degree weather to set up tables, chairs, baby pools, water slides and other party assortments was enough to make me say I will never host another birthday party again. Little Emery was about to experience her first and last birthday party ever with her dad.
Lucky for her, however, once the festivities began and I saw how excited she was to play in the water, destroy the cake and take part in all the other celebratory activities, I had a change of heart and decided all the sweating and hard labor was worth it.
Between the stress of getting Joanna’s proposal just right and the hard work of making Emery’s first birthday a special day I wanted to give up on anything requiring more than five minutes of prep time, but the payoff for both occasions made all the mental and physical strain worth it.
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