It's time to SPAAAA. . . . RTAY - the Mommy version!

So not to be outdone by the little Id, mommy had planned a spa party of her own for her birthday.  Mommy’s version, of course, involved borrowing Nana and Sir’s condo for a sleepover with her college roommates and some incredible peace and quiet for a WHOLE DAY!!  Shhhhh, don't tell the Id that mommy got a sleepover and she didn't.

And, now, of course, we not only have a Husband from Heaven who took the Ego for the weekend, but we also have an Uncle from Heaven (who might get an inflated head if we tell him that too often, so we’re going to keep that part under wraps) who took care of the other two over the weekend.

One again, because of the wonderful design talents of my friend Melinda and her Sparkleberry Studio, I had a gorgeous birthday set up.

How adorable are these glasses?!  Painted with gold paint and glitter.  There's a little more to it than that, but these were plain glasses that are now fabulous!  Again, Melinda is amazing!

Here’s what every mom needs to know about hosting your own spa party sleepover:

It's time to SPAAAA. . . . RTAY!!!

So mommy learned this week why when she was working (outside the home, that is), she SWORE she would not host parties at her house and she would pay any amount necessary for someone else to do the party.

The Id turned 7 and, of course, since she is going on 16, she wanted a spa party.  So mommy thought “how hard can this be?” some nail polish, some hair braids, some cucumbers on the eyes, I got this, no sweat!

Well, we all know how this is going to turn out, so at the very end of the post I’ll show you what the party would have looked like on Pinterest.  But first, I’ll share the behind the scenes version that would get mommy kicked off Pinterest:

No good deed goes . . .

. . . without someone yelling “your customer service is horrible”; and for a moment, you think, “they might be right, this isn’t my best moment . . .”

And then it hits you. . . “What am I, f*#&ing Nordstroms?!”  And then you will have a conversation in your head with that person in which you say “and by the way, in case you were unclear, “volunteer” means I’m paid exactly NOTHING to put up with verbal abuse from people like you.  Oh, and in case you wanted to file a customer service complaint, please let them know how to properly serve a pink slip . . . including a severance package.”

And that is how I started out the girl scouts new year-a mom becoming very upset with me because I could not give her the answer she wanted, and therefore I needed to be schooled about customer service.  

So I began reflecting on how I got myself into this predicament in the first place.   

Here goes . . . "I admit it, my name is Mommy and I’m a serial volunteer."  

I get it from the Nana and I just can’t help myself, every time someone asks for help, I check the “yes” box.  And as I’m sure you all know, I open my mouth often enough that I find myself in charge of things before I realize what I’ve done.

So since I don’t see entering myself into “volunteer addiction” rehab anytime soon, I figured that in case it might be helpful to anyone (including myself) in the future, I’d provide my lessons learned about coping with your volunteer addiction (oh yeah, you guessed it, these include all the dirty little secrets of volunteering that no one ever admits in public):

I called the witch doctor . . .

. . . she told me what to do (and because of it I don’t have headaches, cystic acne, breast pain, and on and on)!

So I know I’m backtracking a bit, but I never did fully explain what happened during my emergency room visit this summer and last week after receiving a $15,000 insurance bill (of which we had to pay $700 - thank God for insurance), even Husband from Heaven had to admit that my acupuncturist was a bargain.  

As most people who know me are aware, for several years I have not only visited an acupuncturist, I have recently started using DoTerra essential oils to treat everything from mildew to warts to fevers.

HfH still believes I’m crazy, but as we all know, he’s pretty patient in putting up with my shenanigans, including the time I threw away everything in our pantry after learning of my gluten intolerance.  That experience will have to wait for another day because today I thought I would share ways to torture your husband with "voodoo" theories (and better yet, prove you're right - which, of course, ALWAYS happens in our house-I'm pretty sure HfH is going to pull out a voodoo doll of me right about now):

Labor of . . .

. . . Love, Exhaustion, Pride, Exasperation, Joy, Exhaustion, Laughter . . . did I mention Exhaustion?!

So as I reflect on my Labor Day (which, by the way, the irony is not lost on me that any day where the children are home from school is a “labor” day), it also occurred to me that we labor to bring them into this world, we labor to entertain them, we labor to clean up after them, we labor to educate them . . . hell, as I see it, EVERY day is Labor Day!!!!

And, all this time while I’ve been thinking that if I can just get them to 18 and out of my house, I can breathe a big sigh of relief.  And then, I turned on my TV and saw . . .

THIS!!!

Now that I’ve had time to recover from my nightmares and remove all the teddy bears from my house (which, by the way, now rank on the “scare the sh*t out of me” scale right up there with Clowns and Chucky Dolls), I realized that behind that “child” is a parent who tweeted how proud he is of his daughter.  So then I thought well, if we can give awards to people who’s greatest accomplishment is that they have proven to their parents and the world that they Can’t Be Tamed, we really should have awards for the people who started it all.

And that, my friends, is how I landed on formalizing what I’m going to call the Parent Of The Year awards.  Of course, as I came to this epiphany, I remembered that The Nana has a “custody file” that is thicker than a Harry Potter book, and therefore I should probably explain the criteria for these awards just so that everyone is clear about how you can earn one.  These are no ordinary awards!!

Here is how you know that YOU might be eligible for a P.O.T.Y award (and again, one has to appreciate the irony that the acronym just happens to remind us of all the sh*t we put up with – figuratively and literally) by the way, as you read these, you need to imagine that Jeff Foxworthy is saying them in his “You Might be a Redneck” voice: