CAUTION: VERY PURPOSEFUL ATTEMPT AT IGNORING CURRENT EVENTS AHEAD.
(I have no idea how to ignore current events, but I'm going to pretend I do.) ($10 says it takes me over two hours to write something that could get done in 20 minutes if only focusing was a thing that was possible.) (ANYWAY.)
There was a birthday! For this kid!
I swear, if she doesn't stop looking so grown up, I'm going to ground her. I'm going to take away all of her electronics, too, because that seems fair.
Also fair is the fact that I totally ruined any and all plans for a birthday party. For real. There were party plans in place and then *POOF* I took them away.
Allow me to explain ... Miss Alexis began planning for her 11th birthday party about 13 seconds after she turned 10. Actually, it may have been before that because there was a time when she wrote out what her theme was going to be every birthday party of her entire childhood. That's not the point, though. The point is that she did a TON of planning, well in advance.
A part of that excessive planning was a day back in December when Alexis began working on her birthday party guest list. At school. I mention that "at school" party because BAD CHOICE, ALEXIS. Someone in her class saw what she was writing and said, "You forgot that you have to invite me." Then she proceeded to list other people that also had to be invited because if Rude Girl was going, she needed to bring her posse.
Part of her posse is the girl that haaaaaaaaates Alexis. It's not my story to tell, but the Adults Can See These Things version is that the girl is hella jealous of Alexis and channels a lot of her energy into finding reasons to tell everyone how terrible she is. It doesn't matter if her reasons are based on facts; she just walks around saying mean things.
Alexis, of course, wants to be friends with EVERYONE, so she can't just ignore people. She's over here being super nice to Hella Jealous Girl and over there telling Rude Girl, "SURE! I will invite you all!" and nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. All the nopes in Nopeville.
Nope.
Let the record show, I didn't shut down Alexis' plans to make all the world happy to her face. I just stopped helping her plan. A weird thing happened with that - Alexis stopped planning, too. I don't know if she was relieved to focus on other things or what, but the entire conversation just stopped.
Four days before her birthday, there was to be no party.
But then someone dropped the greatest idea ever in my lap.
An hour later, four of Alexis' friends were in on the surprise. They joined me at a pizza place on Alexis' birthday and then the kid who needs to quit growing up walked in. She had NO idea that I had invited her friends to dinner, a movie, and a sleepover. NO IDEA.
She went from moping around and telling people, "I guess I'm spending my birthday having dinner with my family" to having her squad right there yelling "SURPRISE!" in the middle of a restaurant.
Alexis declared it her best birthday ever. By miles. She gushed and gushed because she doesn't think I can ever possibly top the magic that was inviting her friends to dinner and surprising her.
Challenge accepted, Alexis.
(For those of you who are keeping score, 2 hours and 10 minutes. It should have been done in less than 20 minutes. SQUIRREL!)