Having lots of people at your party doesn't necessarily make it a success. Less can be more and it should be about the quality of the time more so than the fun of the event. Just look at New York's Time's Square on New Year's Eve. Do you want to be there smashed together with tens of thousands of other fools, er, celebrating people just to say you saw it in person? I know I don't.
We hosted a social last night for the parents of each of our children's classes. We helped coordinate a school fundraising babysitting event so that the parents had a spot their children could be taken care of while we socialized.
As the responses for who would attend and who couldn't make it came in, I must admit there were less overall responses and yes replies than I had hoped. Was our party to be a flop? Was it an indication of how people saw us? Did no one like us? Were we mean or rude to the other parents? And lastly, but not least, was the sky falling?
You've been there before, watching your mind blow things way out of proportion when there was little or no evidence to support the spiral of doom and gloom you invariably felt coming on. And that's when I remembered my mother's story.
She told me about a lady from the college she worked at. I may know who the lady was, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I envision a poised, kindly elegant woman who invited many people to a dinner party. Or maybe it was lunch. I don't remember. My mother arrived. There were tables set and food prepared and they waited for the other guests to arrive.
They waited until it was fairly obvious that no one else was coming. What did the hostess do? She said it was time to start the meal. My mother and she had a meal in which they talked about many things and had a lovely time both eating and talking. Did the hostess say anything about how disappointed she was in the turnout? No. She never said a word. She was a gracious host and it was never brought up.
My mother may not remember the food served, but she remembers how her friend handled the situation. And when I was looking at the RSVP's I remembered that story too and I thought that it didn't matter how many people showed up, it only mattered what you did with the people that did arrive.
So we had a smaller turnout than I initially expected we would (and eighteen instead of thirty isn't that poor a turnout, really.) And we had a tremendous time. Can I just say I love our children's school? We have the best parents. We have wonderful teachers. And we have a positive atmosphere for not only the children's educational environment, but for us as parents and teachers and school staff together. I couldn't have picked a better group of friends if I'd tried.
The Big Boy Update: Beware the hand washer. He got a stool today and pulled it up to the sink in the bathroom. Thus began the hand washing cycle of never-ending soaping and rinsing. It was not necessary to have your hands clean, it was only important to add more soap and rinse it off under the stream of warm water. There wasn't a need for a towel to dry your hands, because more iterations of soaping and rinsing were sure to follow. We had to drag him away from the sink after the seventy-eighth round of washing.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: More of those words we haven't been paying attention to. She knows so many more words than we give her credit for. That, or every day she's unveiling another dozen, casually, as if she's been saying them all along. I need a little baby girl notepad to keep track of them all.
Fitness Update: It only hurts when you stop. I was fine after the fourteen mile run yesterday. I was having a good time through the toddler house families party we hosted last night, including cleanup and I didn't notice anything as I crashed into bed last night. And then I woke up. And there was ow. All over ow that was louder than a good workout ow should have been. I was mostly asleep, thinking of taking an Advil when I got to the bathroom, got some water, almost swallowed to go back to bed in the hopes that the ow would diminish. And that's when I realized I was imaging taking an Advil. If I really wanted to take one, I'd better keep that sip of water in my mouth and find the bottle or my hopes of relief might not come to fruition. I suppose I need to train back up to fourteen miles and beyond in the coming weeks.
Someone Once Said: Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
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