Bithday party and prom

We survived the sleepover, and most of the chips have been vacuumed up. Most years we have warm, sunny weather for Lane's party. We go outside and play kickball or soccer. Not this year. Friday it started out misty and cold. By ten it was hailing. At eleven-thirty they canceled school because of snow. For the first two hours of the party he had invited his whole class. That meant I was going to need to entertain over twenty kids indoors. Since he loves Law and Order I had decorated his cake like a crime scene, complete with chalk outlines and a bloody knife. to entertain them I wrote up a mystery for them to solve and gave them all pencils and little notebooks to write the clues on. They got to keep these in the place of goody bags. Dh was very vocal about this not working and that they would hate it, but since he didn't have a better idea we went with it. I didn't hold back from rubbing it in when they seemed to be having fun with it.

The next night was prom. In a small school, our senior class has about 18 students, several underclassmen get invited as dates. They also invite the school board members, all of their current teachers, and all of their previous teachers to the banquet. Lee is a freshman this year and a senior girl asked him to go to prom with her. Every year the sophomore class serves the meal, their reward is getting to go to the dance. I guess I can count on having to rent a tux for the next three years too. One of the memorable moments of the night for me, as an adult the prom pretty much means a free meal and slipping on heels, was how damn handsome Lee looked in his tux. His kindergarten teacher is retired and lives out of town, so he hadn't seen her in while. When he walked up to say hello she stopped looked him over and said she almost wished he were her date. He talked to her a bit about his upcoming trip to Europe and she put into words the reason I have been working so hard to make this happen for him. She and her husband have done quite a bit of traveling themselves. She took him by the arm and said, "Wait until you get over there and see we don't have a corner on the world. You'll see the things they are doing with art, historical buildings, and recycling and be amazed." I really believe that if more of our young people traveled, less of them would grow up thinking that being an American means being right all of the time. I don't mean to slam my country here. I am very proud to be an American and proud of some of the great things we have accomplished. However, I have listened to our government tell us that to be true Americans we have to think as they do, when to me the best thing about being an American is being allowed to think for one's self.
I'm not sure how I got off on that tangent. Back on topic, another thing that I was reminded of on prom night is how mean high school girls can be. After prom I popped back up to drop of some plain clothes for Lee. He wanted them to wear to the after party. I asked one of the senior boys how prom had went and he said it sucked. Lee explained to me that this boy's date, a freshman girl, refused to dance with him most of the night. The poor boy had not realized beforehand that she only agreed to go with him because she wanted to go to prom, not because she wanted to go with him.

The thing about being a parent is that one day I can be gushing about how great my son is and the next day I want to kill him, literally. Sunday I told him to put his tux back on the hanger so I could return it. There is a late fee so I had to return it that day even though I really didn't feel like making a trip. Since I was going anyway I made a list of a few things I needed at the store. It was a beautiful day so I put the trip off for awhile and took a walk in the country with my mom, the girls, and Jason. We walked a couple of miles out. We took a stroller so Curly top wouldn't have to walk on the way home, so we could go that far. There were still patches of snow on the ground from Friday, so I got hit by several snowballs. Jason packed one so tight I was sure I was going to have a bruise.
As I was getting ready to leave I reminded Lee to put his tux on the hanger. He was leaving to go to my mom's house so he ran to his room before he left. I went back to get the tux and it was on the hanger all right. He had tossed the hanger on his bed then tossed the clothes on top of it. I went through my repertoire of curse words as I hung it up myself. When I got to the store I realized the pants were missing. The store closed in thirty minutes and there was no way to avoid the late fee. Worse than the fee was knowing I had to make the trip again in the morning. He was very lucky that I had time to cool down on the drive home. He was also lucky that Jason had went with me and suggested stopping for a milkshake. We had such a good time together that my mood had improved considerably by the time we made it home.
I had an appointment in Guymon the next morning to pick up the cheese Lee had sold as a fund raiser, so I buckled Huggy bear into her car seat and drove in a ninety-five mile circle that morning. We had to be home by eleven to pick Curly top up from preschool.
The crazy part of the trip was that I was dying to buy something. I never run out of town for just one little thing. If I am going I have a list of things to do since I try to only go every couple of weeks. As I left the clothing shop I kept trying to think of something I might need even though I kept telling myself I didn't need anything. I looked back at Huggy bear and wondered if she needed anything. She was content with her crackers and a bottle, so I thought about stopping for ice cream. I didn't really want ice cream, I just had a silly need to do something. Logic won out though and I just drove on home. I also overcame the urge to kill my firstborn.