“Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

I’m not saying that throwing a carnival for the kiddies is making life easy for them — it’s making life more fun for them, for sure. But
damn, I’ve put less hours into major projects at work than I have for this carnival. We’re organized, no doubt about it. There are four of us on the committee, plus a couple of auxiliary members. We’ve rounded up a bunch of volunteers, wrangled donations, planned out games, bought bags of toys (the whoopee cushions, I’ve heard, are especially popular), made up a schedule, gathered bag after bag of empty shoeboxes. (It’s a Mardi Gras theme — YES I KNOW IT’S LENT NOW, sorry!! — so the kids can make miniature “floats” out of shoeboxes that they’ve decorated with tissue paper and glitter.) They can also make or buy masks, and they get free tickets if they come in costume.

Wacky Boy is going as a bumblebee (thank you, A! I love the little plastic stinger on the butt), and Wacky Girl is going as a princess, or a witch. (She takes after mommy, awwwww…)

Wacky Daddy took the day off! Hot dog! He’s out now picking up cakes & doughnuts for the much-vaunted Cakewalk. Mama Em and one of her baby monkeys are doing the modern version of “hunting and gathering” for the same stuff in a different part of town. (You’re familiar with the Cakewalk concept, yes? I’ve explained the game to about ten adults and kids in the last week. Poor things, never having done the Cakewalk before! Numbers on the floor, kinda like musical chairs. The band plays, everyone walks, then the band stops and if you’re on the Lucky Number you get to pick out the cake — or pie, which A and I like
better — of your choice.)

(Carnival tip: Make friends with the bakery managers at your local grocery stores. If they won’t give it to you for free — many of them will, though — at least they’ll save you a shopping cart or two of day-old half-priced stuff. Carnival tip #2: Kids and adults, too, go completely bonkers for a carnival. Surly, drunken parents you never thought would volunteer for anything are suddenly sunny and smiley and telling you they’d love nothing more than to work the beverages table.

“We’re having iced tea AND lemonade? Coooool!”

We’re having a Cajun dinner (gumbo, dirty rice and beans, sausages, Moon Pies, the works), Cajun music, games, door prizes, a raffle, and a parade at the end. I think we’ve got about forty cakes, pies, and various forms of packaged sugar for the cakewalk, plus we’re ordering a huge sheet cake, decorated in Mardi Gras colors, to serve with the dinners.

Crazy? You bet.

Somedays the whole zen thing is not working for me. Breathe… breathe… breathe… focus on the calming effect of the sudsy dishwater as I scrub the same damn pan over and over and OVER?&!@$*! no, breathe… breathe…

how much compost can one family of four create???

No, wait, focus on the swish-a, swish-a of the washing machine, the sunlight coming through the front windows, onto the floor… the buckling floor, where the sagging beams below are sinking, it’s like a g.d. rollercoaster in here. Must call contractor, goddammit, how much is this going to cost? Re-fi house. Again.

when am i supposed to clean the unpaid-for house? The in-laws are getting here Saturday. But not ’til dinnertime. Saturday morning? After we’ve been up late the night before at the school carnival? In between music class (10-11 a.m.) and dance (noon-1 p.m.)? What happened to easy-going Saturdays? Sleeping in, going for a walk. Must walk the dog so he doesn’t chew up furniture. Goofyass anxious obsessive-compulsive dog. Too bad he doesn’t clean, it’d give him a place to throw all that manic energy. Put him outside, he chews the exterior of the house. Leave him inside, he chews up the woodwork. Chewing up the scenery like a bad actor.

No, wait — look at the bright yellow, neatly-aligned recycling bins out front… ah, breathe, breathe.

Today is cool, but yesterday — tough. Too much PTA stuff, back breaking, kids screaming. Most people get a wake-up call (at their hotel, or from the alarm clock) at 6:30 a.m. Mine arrived at 6:30 p.m., when my daughter walked into the office, where I was trying to wrap up my end of the loose ends for the carnival. She was munching on a half-empty container of mac and cheese.

She announced: “So. I guess I’ll eat this for dinner!”

Mommy guilt. But she wasn’t mad, or starving to death. Just making a statement. And feeding herself. Wait! This is the first time she’s ever done this. It’s kinda cool, that she’s getting self-reliant. And she’ll love the carnival, it’ll be a blast.

My husband made some soup and Texas burgers (have u had them? very good. They taste like genuine barbecue, sans meat) when he got home, I wrapped up my loose ends, everyone had dinner together (a little late, but whatever) and all was well. Peaceful, really.

And all that “zen” carried over to… right now.

Any ideas on throwing a fun, low-stress party (ha!) for three 3-year-olds? (We’re thinking of having one big party rather than… three big parties. And we’re thinking we don’t want to have it at one of our houses, or at Chuck E. Cheese… please.