In case you have not noticed in recent posts, my daughter's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's was this past Saturday, May 8, 2010. It was a success even though not everyone that I had anticipated showed up. Some lessons learned on my part but the real interesting aspects of it was how my wife handled the event.
To my surprise, my wife bought the birthday cake. Of course, she took issue with the size (it was a bit smaller than I had expected), plus she took issue with how I handled the invitations. Truth is, she was starting to irritate me with how she found fault in how I handled certain parts of the party and was giving unsolicited advice here and there. But to be sure, I made sure that I showed appreciation for all of her advice and told her that while I was not the expert in handling these things like she was, I was doing the best I could and considered it all a learning experience.
But the issue she took over the size of the cake (which by the way was more than sufficient for the number of guests that did arrive) it kind of pushed me over the edge and I had to respond.
"You know for someone who is not suppose to have anything at all to do with birthdays, you sure do have a lot to say about how I am handling my daughter's. What gives?"
"Well, I'm a controlling person and I just see how I would do things differently and as much as I want to get in there and do things I keep having to tell myself, 'You're not into this anymore, this is HIS party now.'"
"You're not into it, yet you seem to keep teetering along the fence over what you want to do. Personally, I am not used to that. Either you are okay with birthday parties or you're not. It's hard for me to know what to expect from you when you get wishy washy like this."
My daughter liked the words 'wishy washy' by the way and started laughing at the words wondering what it means. She is so inquisitive like that.
My wife then laments and admits that she believes that events that have pagan origins should be viewed in accords to how they are celebrated today. WHOA!
She also takes great issue with the whole premise that 99.9% of the whole world's population are going to die at Armageddon. DOUBLE WHOA!
In her mind, she feels that no one really deserves to die when people are born into a condition that makes them inclined to sin.
I told her that I think she is having a major case of cognitive dissonance and that she really should read the book I brought home. CRISIS OF CONSCIOUS.
She then went on to say that she had issue with going along with what other religions believe about the whole 'pearly gates' thing and I told her that it is not about finding another religion. The conversation got cut short because it started getting a bit too heavy for a little 4 year old to listen in on and we decided to put a to 'be continued' on it. Besides, we had just arrived at Chuck E Cheese's and was running late for the party.
My wife had fun at the party and so did my daughter and all her friends. I let my wife talk with the other mothers and let them play with the kids while I handled things with the staff at the party.
Coming up, this Friday, May 14, my wife's assistant at her job wants to throw her a surprise birthday party (my wife's birthday is this week). I agreed to help out in any way I can and plan to bring my daughter and invite her 'worldly' sister to come over too.
Stay tuned...