

Bringing Up Baby:
Donuts And Disappointment..
4 Lessons From The Botched Birthday Party
I have a lot of friends in the parenting trenches and though that time has passed for me, (now, we are firmly planted in the “teen years”; and you thought terrible twos were bad) there are moments from it that I remember as if they were yesterday.
One of them was my son Cole’s big birthday celebration.
Now, as you parents know, the birthday celebration consists of two parts; there’s the home celebration, with family and a few friends. And there’s the school soiree where the birthday child is hoisted on a chair and paraded over the land, with the loyal subjects (classmates) chanting their love and admiration.
Or just cupcakes in class.
Yeah. That.
Related: Good Enough Mother How I Hit The Brink And Found My Way Back Again
So when Cole was turning 8 in the second grade, he asked me to bring donuts to class, in the shape of an 8; of course, since you only turn 8 once, regular, old circular donuts would never do. Besides, Matt Krause’s mom had done the same.
Dammit.
I did my research, ordered the donuts, called the day before said donuts were to be picked up to make sure they were going to be there and so on. In other words, I took care of business.
So when I arrived the next day to pick up the donuts, they were there, right?
WRONG!
Oh, there were donuts there.. just not MY donuts. Some other, fried and frazzled mom had come in right before me and took the number 8 donuts I ordered, instead of the number 9’s she was supposed to.
Related: Breaking The Adult Rules: Lessons I Learned From A Trip With My Son
I felt faint.
I felt weak.
I was going to disappoint my son in ways unimaginable and that I’m sure no parent had ever done before.
(Okay, a little melodramatic but stay with me here.)
THINK WOMAN!
What could I do?
I had two options; I could rush over to ShopRite and grab cupcakes, which would be suitable but not what he wanted. Or, I could take the number 9 donuts in, apologize for what was not my mistake but just a screw up and make the best of the (bad) situation.
I opted to do the latter.
And when I showed up, balancing two boxes of donuts and a handful of napkins, my little birthday baby was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
Happy.
Content.
Here’s why.. and the 4 lessons I learned from that day.
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