Is there a limit to what I’m willing to do to make my children happy, assuming it’s something I’m able to do? I’m seriously asking, because I haven’t found it yet. Instead, I find myself decorating the entire house for Valentine’s day, when I’m pretty sure I used to hate Valentine’s day and would often wear black in protest. And then when a certain preschooler tells me that we need to decorate MORE, and this should include Elmo and Abby decorations, I find myself hand creating them out of construction paper.
I’ve also ordered a cookie cake, since we’ve taken to celebrating everything with a family party these days anyway. We made it to Friday? Pizza party! Snowing on a Sunday morning? Pancake party! This pandemic may stink, and it’s certainly stolen a lot from us, but I think it’s given us something too. It’s forced us to become closer and to create our happiness inside our home.
Considering the only other place we go is daycare, I’ve also thrown myself into the weekly themed days, which is why you might see my children with rainbow colored hair on any given day, partly because that stuff doesn’t come out easily, and partly because who cares if it makes them happy. You never quite know what you’ll be like as a parent until you’re in the middle of it, but I’ve quickly realized there are somethings I care a lot about (how the siblings treat each other and the sound level in this house being two of them), and a lot of things I don’t.
I feed my kids happy meals as I scroll past family members posting on facebook about how toxic they are. I put whipped cream on carrots, because does it really matter if the carrots get eaten? And I help my kids create elaborate Valentine’s to give all their friends, because they’re so excited they talk about them every single day.
I just hope none of my children ever want an Abby birthday party, because I think she’s creepier than Frazzle.
Even if you watch Sesame Street and consider yourself and expert, you might not know who Frazzle is. We were first introduced to him via the “Fuzzy and Blue” song (which I’ll admit is hilarious), and E quickly fell in love. I’m pretty sure the Frazzle book we own is the only merchandise in existence right now, and we’ve only managed to find a handful of videos on youtube where he exists. He simply isn’t used that much or at all anymore. My theory is because he’s super scary looking and doesn’t speak English, but that hasn’t stopped E from loving him.
And so every time I asked E what he wanted the theme for his birthday to be, he would tell me “Orange Frazzle Party.” And yes, I tried to suggest other things, wait to see if he’d change his mind, anything. Nope, this is what he wanted.