My children beg me to not throw them birthday parties. Friends avoid me during pregnancy, so I won't offer to host baby showers. My ladies group always comes up with excuses for why our quarterly tea should not be at my house. My husband never invites business associates over for dinner because he doesn't want to overwhelm me or cause me unnecessary work. He says sweet things like, "Our money is less valuable than your time" when he pays for birthday parties at the latest kiddie hotspot, which in our town changes about every month.
I am starting to think that my friends and family do not believe that I am capable of implementing a themed birthday party with homemade dinosaur shaped cupcakes or a black-tie dinner party that would use a complicated algorithm to determine the size of the canapé in relation to guest importance -- the more important guest the smaller the hors d'œuvres.
It is true that for my moms’ group cookie exchange that I used a Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix, added cherry chips to make them look homemade, and of course, conveniently forgot to bring the recipe that was required. But, how else was I going to get Christmas cookies from people who knew what they were doing? Yes, I buy the most complicated pasta salad at Kingsoopers and place it in my own serving bowl every year for the neighborhood picnic and proudly say "thank you" when complimented for my culinary sophistication.
It is only when I try to do the work myself when it all falls apart in the form of a two-tiered round Funetti birthday cake that crumbled upon immediate pan removal. My eight-year-old spent her birthday trying to glue her cake back together with icing. She gave up and asked if we could go buy a Hannah Montana cake. I did buy her the cake, but there is hope for her ninth birth, which is nine months away. I plan on using tips and tricks found the home entertaining website: http://homeconfetti.blogspot.com/ (However, plans and follow through are two different concepts.)
Although it is not likely that I will implement a single creative idea from this fun and innovative website dedicated to entertaining, I always get a whimsical feeling that maybe someday I’ll make party invitations without cutting my fingers, bake cakes without setting off the smoke alarm, put something cute in my kids lunch boxes that was made by me and not found at Target. Perhaps the next time my sister has a baby, I could make the amazing Alphabet Block centerpiece created by the website designer opposed to just buying a gift and sending well-wishes from a far. Not likely, but it is nice to engage in a delightful domestic fantasy or two while I am standing in line at the finest bakery in town.
