Sweet Sixteen: An Ode to the Fact That My Kids Don't Appreciate Me Nearly Enough

Sixteen years ago, I became a mom..... to this little wonder.....

I should probably post a picture of her as a baby, but she was born before digital cameras so that would mean I would have to go to the basement, search through the scrapbook, find a picture and scan it in.  Way too much work.  Instead, enjoy this super adorable picture of her blow drying her hair in a disturbingly bright yellow bathroom.

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about my first born turning 16.  Mostly, at this point in the game, I am feeling like she needs to be able to take her and everyone else in my house under the age of 18 to all of their various activities.

Seriously, I feel like I am cautiously optimistic about the future of the human race.  Although I tell myself repeatedly and daily that parents have been raising children for millennia, I spend an awful lot of time wondering if either of us are going to survive the teenage years.  And as we discuss her roles and responsibilities, rather loudly at times, I would like her to remember that I've never done this before either.  I am flying blind (nearly.)  All I have to go on are my memories of being 16.  These memories include, but are not limited to:

• Running over a chicken while driving with my parents on the morning of my 16th birthday.  We were coming back from Hardee's where we ate breakfast (at least I think we ate; I know my mom did because she loved their raisin biscuits.)  Anyway, the chicken was lying in the middle of the road, already dead, and although both of my parents instructed me to steer around it, my perception of oncoming traffic would not allow the avoidance of said chicken.  That was the day that I decided that "why did the chicken cross the road" jokes were no longer funny.
• I remember my parents letting me take our Plymouth Acclaim out for a drive after I got my license on my birthday; with promises to not listen to the radio.  I won't be making Erin make the same promise.  I'm a realist.  Car below was not the actual vehicle.... but you get the idea.  I went and picked up my friends Corrie and Jennifer and we went for a drive.

Not long after my birthday, I got my own set of wheels.  Looking back, I wasn't nearly grateful enough.

It had a really great stereo....

And state-of-the-art seat belts.... safety first, you know.

So much fun.... really.  Mom and Dad, if you're reading this, know that even though I wanted a Geo Metro, my 1979 VW Rabbit was awesome.  I'm being serious.  Thanks for paying for my insurance and for my gas.

• My 16th birthday was the first and last time that my weight on the scale and my weight on my Drivers License matched.  I remember feeling at the time like lying about my weight would be vain, and would not be responsible because any emergency personnel responding to any accident I might be involved in would need to have accurate information.  Seriously, I thought that.
• I remember Youth Conference that summer.  It was at Flaming Gorge and we all completely overused the phrase "the dam dance" when referring to the dance that was held... wait for it, on the dam.  I fell out of the raft while we were running the river.  It was cold, and I was super embarrassed about the boys in my raft trying to pull me back in.  Seriously, like this picture...

If this happens at Youth Conference this year, just leave me in the water.  I still have flashbacks and don't ever expect to conquer the stigma.

• That summer was the first and last time that anyone riding in my vehicle ever flipped anyone the bird.  It's a rule in my car.  I may swear like a sailor, but there are no middle finger salutes allowed in my car.  There's a story here, but I'm not going to tell it here.  I'll leave it at the fact that it involved disobeying my parents, cheerleading camp and the first time I peed a little while driving.

All of these incidents are enough to make me nostalgic and break out into hives all at once.  As Erin embarks on this period of her life, I am extremely grateful that I never have to go back to this time in my life.  It's something that you enjoy while you're there, but honestly, you couldn't pay me enough to go back.

Things have changed since 1991 (I know, hard to believe.)  Vanilla Ice is no longer the best in popular music, Cheers is off the air, and despite the fact that we are still fighting a war in Iraq, there is a bit of a generational divide occurring in my house.

Dating has changed.  I remember my parents lamenting the fact that kids in my day didn't just call and invite a fellow student to a school dance; we had to come up with some clever way to do it.  Well, of course we did.  

Erin was invited to the Prom by her friend Thomas.  The whole ask was very well scripted.  Allie was in cahoots with Erin's date and made sure that I was home from my Girls Night Out to be able to witness the blessed event.

Yeah, well now we have reached beyond the creative ask and answer and have arrived at the wonder of the all-day date.  There's a day activity... which sounds easy enough, but when none of the kids your daughter is going to the dance with have ever been on a date before, it is like the blind leading the deaf.  Who plans it?  Should the girls bring food?  What should we do?

Then there are the clothes.  Should the boys wear tuxes? Just suits?  Does there have to be a vest?  Prom dress shopping.  I'm telling you what, not that I'm trying to bemoan how immodest formal wear is today (because I imagine I am more liberal than most) but shame on the local companies who try to capitalize on moral standards to remain modest and temple-worthy clothing.  Honestly, what kind of high school student can afford a $450 prom dress.... just to have sleeves.  Ridiculous.

Erin and company went shopping and narrowed it down to two....

And then there was one.... the one that looks like a painting.... because it was just totally Erin.  Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Erin and Allie were on a quest.... to make sure that things were perfect.  There were swatches to aid in the selection of flowers....

And finally, the shoes... now, in my day (because I'm ancient) if my mom had willingly spent over $200 on a dress for me, I would have worn orthopedic nursing shoes if she told me to.  I wanted her to wear heels, she wanted to wear Converse.  She won.

Her date Thomas looked so handsome, and he told her she "looked amazing!"  Which, as a mom, is what you like to hear.  It was so fun to see the two of them looking all grown up and sophisticated.   Look at these two in the 7th grade...

He's actually taller than me now.  I noticed that when I was pinning on his boutonniere.

So, another thing that has changed since I went to the prom is pictures.  When I went to the prom, getting pictures at the dance was part of the event.  Evidently now, pictures at the dance cost like $65.  Talk about ridiculous.  No wonder the kids don't go to dances.  It's too flippin' expensive.  In all the discussion about how the night would go, Erin became obsessed with who and where they were going to get pictures taken.  At first I thought this was silly; but as time wore on, it became evident that this was something we would have to address.  Enter Uncle Spencer.  He is just plain awesome and is probably sick to death of us asking him for favors.  He agreed to meet Erin and her friends at Memory Grove to take their pictures before they went to dinner at Benihana.  After all of the kids had left, I drove down to meet them for pictures.  Oh my goodness; there were tons of people getting pictures taken there.  Lots of kids at prom, several senior picture sessions, engagement pictures, missionary photos and a wedding or two.  Wow!  Needless to say, Erin was right; this is a thing.  So thanks to Uncle Spencer for recording this event for posterity.

Thomas and Erin double dated with Austin and Ali... and then finally, because our Allie was so excited she was almost going to explode, we let her get in on the picture action for a bit.

And I had to throw this last one in because I though the Mickey and Minnie pins were so cute; and totally Erin.

Prom was held on April 30, 2016; technically four days before Erin's 16th birthday.  We got around this technicality by basing her dating eligibility on her gestational age.  She was due April 28.... she just wasn't motivated; no motivation is still the story of her life.  They had a lot of fun on their date.  The prom was held at the Utah Cultural Center in West Valley City, which really makes me laugh because that's where we moved from (and where Matt and I grew up.)  It kinda has a bad reputation, not altogether undeserved, about being a rough part of town.  There are parts that are, to be sure, but there are a lot of nice areas and great people everywhere in this world.  But, like most kids, most of my kids' friends are misinformed about the area.  It was incredibly ironic to me that Erin's first formal dance was held in West Valley.  I told her, "you can take the girl out of West Valley City, but you can't take the West Valley City out of the girl."

That night, we also had a massive wind storm in south Davis County.  Not all that unheard of, but I was glad that the kids were actually being chauffeured for the evening by Austin's mom.  After the dance, they headed to Thomas' house where the plan was to watch a movie... but the power was out.  So the girls changed into the "chill clothes" they had packed and they played Twister by candle light. After a while, the power came back on and they watched the Sixth Sense.  Erin said it was one of the scariest shows she'd ever seen..... I think that may have been by design.  We let her stay out a little later than normal..... but she came home just gushing!  She had a great time on her first date.  Thank you Thomas for inviting her.

On Wednesday, the big day finally arrived.  Erin was 16!  She started the day at the pool working out with the swim team.  The kids in her lane caught a break because it was her birthday.  I think she was pretty psyched.  The day was super busy with lots of things to do: school, baseball, mutual, a new phone and an attempt to get her drivers license.  Let it be said that we tried our hardest to make sure that she had a good birthday.... but we weren't able to make everything happen the way she wanted.  We had to jump through some hoops for the new phone and she still doesn't have her license (driving test on Friday) but I think the day ended up okay.

So now onto the biggest part of her birthday celebration.  She wanted a big party!  Thanks to reality TV for the unrealistic expectations; but we started planning in January in hopes that eating the elephant a bite at a time would make it possible.  Erin wanted to highlight her love of Disney, invite everyone she's ever met and celebrate her entry into semi-adulthood.  So we planned, and pinned and tried our hardest to figure out how to make her vision a reality.  Nearly a week later, I'm not sure that I can say that I'm completely recovered.  It was a dang lot of work, and not without controversy.  I'm hoping to be able to write about it objectively and to highlight the fun that I think folks had; but I want to be true to myself and to my experience and document for posterity (okay, just my kids) that stuff like this does not happen without a significant amount of sacrifice.  The emotional, physical, financial, mental and social wear and tear on a family when any big event is planned is real.  There were a lot of jokes made about whether it was a wedding or a birthday.  If you were to look at the planning process on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a little kid birthday and 10 being an average wedding, I would say the event ended up being about an 8.  If it had been a wedding, it would have fallen short of my expectations, but for a birthday, it was a good solid effort.  I think that Erin wishes that more of her friends had come, and for her sake, I wish they had.  We had lots of family come and neighborhood friends show up and that really made me feel grateful.  But, the decorations didn't quite turn out as planned, for several reasons.... and there were a few ideas that got scrapped at the last minute, due to time.  We didn't end up playing the games that Erin had wanted to play; but really that part was fine with me because I was much happier visiting with the folks that came.  I always find it mildly uncomfortable trying to incorporate groups of people from different aspects of our lives; family, friends and ward.  I always worry that everybody will get along, or that everyone will feel included.  We also added the more difficult element of young children and so I was a little worried about that.  I shouldn't have.  Everyone got along fine.  Except probably me and Matt.  He was less than thrilled with the amount of work (and money) I put into the party; it stressed him out.  Add to that the fact that I may have been just a TEENY bit stressed myself, and we kinda needed a referee.  Hopefully, nobody but my dad and kids noticed the tension.  If you did, I'm sorry.... but we're real, and it happened.  But here is my justification.... over the course of the last six months I have had several experiences where friends have lost children or the kids have simply grown up and have lost interest in being a kid.  I feel very strongly that when I look back at these years, I can say that I know my kids felt loved; they felt like their mom and dad would move the sun, moon and stars to make them happy.  When my kids are grown up and out of the house, I don't want to have regrets.  I don't want to feel as though all I ever did was nag them about grades, or messy rooms or bad teenaged attitudes.  The reality is, I have great kids; although I may be just a little bit biased.  My kids are definitely not perfect..... and I will continue to push them to try and help them improve; but too many times I think I have a tendency to forget that they are still kids and that they still like hanging out with us and with our family.  And that is pretty cool.  How many 16-year-olds do you know that want to have  Disney birthday party, and play games and happily invite their toddler-aged cousins.  Honestly, life is too short.

So as I'm posting pictures of the party, I'm going to post some of the inspiration shots contrasted by how things actually ended up looking.  I'm not sure why I'm doing this... the reality is, the decorations for the party were fine, especially give our time and money constraints.  There were opportunities to make it better that for some reason or another didn't happen, and I guess I'm okay with that.  But I would be lying if I said I was 100% happy with the way things turned out. I spent the last 5 months collecting things and coming up with ideas and while some of them were awesome genius (thank you Italian Soda Bar at the Snuggly Duckling)... like so many others, I sometimes only see where I have fallen short.

So here is what I wanted.....

Here is what we ended up with.....

Originally, I wanted it on the other wall, too, but the logistics of trying to get it strung up were just too much.  I would have liked it if they had overlapped a bit more.  And I would have especially like it if the "T" in Best Day Ever would have inflated.  The letters were smaller than I thought they'd be, which was a tad disappointing.  I do, however, really love the giant Tangled braid on the food table.  That was a good idea, even if I didn't get the tiny paper flowers made to stick in the braid.

On the other side of the gym, we were left to do our paper sculpture wall.  This is a small sampling of where I was drawing my inspiration from:

I had all the stuff.  I had spent hours making tissue paper pom poms.  

I practiced in Pittsburgh with Holli and this was the final result in Jilly's room.  Super cute right?

Well, this is what I got.  I ran out of time and it was determined (not by me) that it looked "good enough."  When and if I ever do a wedding, I will plan on at least 12 hours to set up.

I don't love it.  It could have been better.  Now the challenge is going to be finding somewhere in my home to put them up because I just think they're fun.

This is the bar I wanted....

And this was the one I got..... fortunately for me, my selection of beverages were a hit!

The tables turned out fun and mostly great (except for the Incredibles themed one.)  That was by far the hardest one because trying to find toys in good condition from old movies is hard.

 

See? I told you the Incredibles table was lame.  The Edna Mode doll I found on eBay was awesome, but Mr. Incredbile doesn't sit willingly, I had meant to buy a black tablecloth instead of gold, and this was the only table I didn't get cute confetti for because I kept getting sidetracked and then forgot to go back to it.  Super lame.

The food turned out great;  Allie helped with most of it and did a fantastic job!  Pictures below are concepts from Pinterest.  Ours varied a little bit and we threw in some fruit and Erin's favorite pasta salad from a box.... we're high class like that.

Merida's Targets (Brave)

 Greek Salad on a Stick (Hercules)

Blue Sky and Balloon Parfaits (Up)

Banana Pudding Cups (Tarzan) 

Sebastian Chicken Salad Sandwiches (The Little Mermaid)

And PB & J Uncrustables because Pudge controls the weather!

We have A LOT of food left over.  That was kind of frustrating.  Not only did we go to the trouble to purchase and prepare it; now we face the task of storing it and trying to eat all the leftovers before they go bad.  A shout-out to Grandma Brenda for her mad pudding and jello making skills.  We have plenty, should the apocalypse occur.  Oh, and there was a bit of an incident with the jello in the car on the way home.

Wa-wa-wa!

Finally, there were the activities and games, most of which we bagged because the kids were more interested in chatting than playing games.  We had a "Guess my Disney Character" game where they had a name from one of the eight movies on their back.  There was a duck pond, which mostly just turned into playing in the water and ransacking the bags of cheap Chinese toys I bought for prizes.  We had the Stitch Limbo planned, complete with Stitch hat and slippers, and a Wilderness Explorer patch scavenger hunt.  None of those happened.  Erin was supposed to be in charge of the AV stuff and the playlist.  But she forgot her AUX cord so no music for a while.  Fortunately, once again, Uncle Spencer saved the day.  But then, nobody wanted to listen to Erin's Disney music, which I suspect kind of bummed her out.

Speaking of Uncle Spencer, he may be the coolest uncle ever because he showed up and helped us set up a photo booth.  I don't have those pics yet, but I'm hoping there will be some really fun ones.  And let me just throw this out there..... if anyone every needs any props for a photo booth, please check with me first.  I made a ton (which added to the ton I already had.)  I'm going to need a storage unit for my party supplies before you know it.

Matt spent four hours constructing a paper model of Mr. Frederickson's house.... the old coot from Up.  We made 100 Ellie badges to give away as favors.  We still have an awful lot left over.  Look for them to accompany the zucchini that will be doorbell ditched later in the summer.  The biggest part of these two projects fell to Matt to complete, which may have added to his frustration.

The highlight of the party decor were the posters that my cousin Jordan made for me.  She was so kind and agreed to do a huge custom project for me, all while she was trying to finish up her college degree.  I wanted something that would kind of tie all the movies together, which was no easy task.  We thought the idea of the "Keep Calm and..." poster phenomena would a good way to create some parity.  We put together several of our favorite quotes or concepts from all of the movies, and then Jordan went to work.  I love what she came up with and I can't wait to start framing them and hanging them up in our house.

I'm not really sure why some of the colors are off, but trust me, they look awesome.  Displaying these posters was another fly in the ointment.  I wanted to make sure they stayed in good condition (no holes or wrinkles) but trying to hang them up without these problems was a challenge... so here are a few shots of what they looked like hanging up around the room.

I really wanted to find a cool way to display them...

I think the bottom line on the decorations is that both Erin and I wanted the inside of the church to NOT look like the inside of the church.  It's frustrating.... I found so many cute ideas...

But, you know..... it still looks like the church :(  

After dinner and talking they watched Tangled and then it was time to go home.  We had planned on having a balloon send-off, but had to abort those plans because kids, big and small, were obsessed with the helium tank.  So, that didn't happen..... and I may have been disappointed at this.

As the night wound down, our clean-up crew was going strong.  Matt carefully took down the posters and put away the tables and chairs.  Allie and her friend Isabelle took all the other fun stuff down.  

My friend Alison took her kids home and then helped us clean up all the food and the kitchen. Grandma and Grandpa Pierce helped to clear the tables, I ran stuff between the church and home, including kids as they dropped out one by one, and my dad stayed and vacuumed, packed up the disappointing twisty fringe and took all the garbage out. We left and were home in our beds by midnight.

Fast forward to four days post party, and the cars and the main level of the house are still packed to the gills.  I really need to clean stuff up, but what is overwhelming to put together is also overwhelming to take apart.  I find myself at a point of reflection.  Was the massive party worth it?  Time will tell.  I think there were some really cool things.  I guess I wish that more folks would have come so that maybe the over-the-top would be more to scale.... but Erin was surrounded by some of her best friends.... the kids that have been her friends for the longest.  Ben Anderson even stopped by on his way from Twin Falls, ID to visit his grandma for Mother's Day.  She was happy, I think.  I hope she felt special.... because she is.  Going forward, the vestiges of childhood will continue to fall.  I am grateful that she still enjoys stuff like Disney and I'm grateful that she would still choose to have her parents, siblings and family help her celebrate her birthday.  I don't think she really and truly appreciates the amount of work and effort that went into trying to achieve our vision... but she did say thank you, and that's a start.

Soon, and by soon I mean tomorrow, she will be able to drive herself to school, and her brothers to baseball practice (HALLELUJAH!)  But, she will still be my sweet Erin who is more worried and concern about others than she is about herself.  She will be my girl who goes out of her way to make everyone feel included.  The beautiful girl who rolls out of bed with great beach hair and a personality that everyone is drawn to.  Although she drives us crazy and still has lots of room to improve, she is a great daughter and an awesome sister.  We made it through the first sixteen years despite the fact most of the time I feel as though I am barely hanging on this white-knuckled ride.

Happy Birthday Erin!