Written April 27th but never published because evidently I don’t know how to push the right buttons.
It’s been a busy season for Annabelle Sesame Lee. Within the same week she was Eleanor of Austria for World Day at school, a five of hearts playing card and flower in the Alice In Wonderland play and we finally celebrated her birthday. I brought her to HobLob to get supplies to make Eleanor’s headpiece which she insisted she wanted to make herself, but she later asked me to do it. “I need some quiet time. My schedule is too busy right now.” Same, girl. Signed, your chauffeur, chef, maid, and hot glue gun operator. 
I’ve never been a fan of Alice In Wonderland and I wondered if seeing my favorite child perform in it might chance my mind about the story. It did not. I still dislike it just as much as ever. It’s so chaotic! But she was precious (says every parent even when their child plays a blade of grass) and I sat through all three shows. Her flower costume really tickled me. She wore a straw hat covered in flowers and a pink tutu. She hasn’t worn a tutu in 48 months much to my sorrow, but the second the director says to wear one, she’s all, “Mom! Don’t forget! We have to pack my tutu in my bag! We need all my costumes pieces!” Maybe Miss Vickie can also bring back bows as part of our daily life.
In final AB news, she had a very small birthday party this year. After much deliberation, she settled on wanting to bring two friends to the roller rink. It took a significant amount of coordination between us three moms to nail down the date and time only for the rink to permanently shut down three days before the party. Back to the drawing board we went. We picked a new location which meant a new time frame and working with a new development on the part of one of the guests. If she was having more kids I wouldn’t have tried so hard to work with everyones schedules, but she was only having two and I needed to make sure both were there. You know who ended up not being there? ME. Her mother. The amount of guilt I felt will never leave me. I was there for the birthday lunch, cake and presents but had to leave for work and couldn’t go to the river aquarium with them. I don’t care about the riverquarium, but the fact that I wasn’t there for every second of her party made me feel awful. There was no one to take my shift so I had to go. I’ll hold onto this until the day I die. She will forget by next week.
I may be late to the gift giving portion of our 12th anniversary on Saturday. I don’t have a gift for Christopher yet but it’s not for lack of looking. It’s partly for lack of looking but not entirely. I’ll tell myself I need to look into it then get distracted by the grocery list or the cats throwing up or improving my Tetris score. Someone decided that the traditional twelfth anniversary gift is linen or silk and you know what no man I know wants/needs? A linen or silk gift. Christopher doesn’t want a silk bathrobe and he certainly doesn’t lounge by our nonexistent pool sipping a watermelon daiquiri in a linen shirt. I asked AB what I should give and she giggled and said, “How ’bout some lennon underwear?” which really confused me. Three days ago she told her guitar teacher she didn’t know who John Lennon was and now she was saying I should get underwear with his face on it. Turns out she was mispronouncing linen. Elizabeth suggested I buy him a couple of Silkie chickens. 
Move over, linen and silk. John Lennon underwear and chickens are the new twelfth anniversary gifts.
