I keep a calendar by the garage door so that Daughter 1 (who may be more than a little bit OCD) and Daughter 2 (who may be more than a little bit fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants) and The Dad (who claims I never tell him anything) can keep track of everything we always have going on for the month. This month on the 19th - yesterday - I penned a beautiful pink heart and wrote "13" inside. This was The Dad's and my thirteenth anniversary.
Approximately 20 days ago, Daughter 1 (here's where the OCD comes in) was memorizing the calendar and noticed that the 19th was our anniversary. That evening, she approached me and The Dad and said, in all seriousness, "Do not worry about your anniversary plans. I'll take care of everything!"
And then we worried.
For the past 20 days, Daughter 1 has been planning our anniversary celebration. Since she's always planning no less than a dozen things at a time (including her Halloween costume for 2014, no kidding), most of us just tuned her out, nodded our heads and murmured "Sounds good" at an appropriate time. We think.
On Friday, Daughter 1 told us (and Daughter 2) that it was time to get serious with the planning: We all had jobs to do and we needed to get busy and get our jobs done so that she could supervise the celebration and make sure it all went off just as she had been planning for the previous 18 days.
My job was write down the instructions on how to make lasagna from scratch; then I had to go buy the ingredients. Daughter 2's job was to learn how to write: LASAGNA since she would be the waitress. The Dad's job was to take a shower and wear clean clothes. She's intuitive about her daddy! Daughter 1's job was to make sure The Dad and I had a romantic and delicious dinner in the privacy of our own home.
The night before our big celebration, when Daughter 1's bossiness got the best of her sister, Daughter 2 backed out. She was refusing to be the waitress. Why? Because Daughter 1 wanted dinner served at 6:00 and Daughter 2 said she would only work after 6:42. The entire celebration was called off for a period of 17 minutes while The Daughters duked it out then eventually settled on a dinner time of 6:48.
Saturday morning arrived and The Daughter asked what she needed to do to get the sauce started so that it could simmer all day. I gave her the recipes and showed her the gadgets and spices she'd need, and she became completely freaked out with the tomatoes and asked me if I'd do this one little thing for her, please? So, I made the sauce and left it on the back of the stove to simmer.
Next, she was going to make the hot fudge cake. She got the batter stirred and was about to pour it into the pan when The Dad announced that he was going to town and Daughter 1 really wanted to go with him. So, I finished the hot fudge cake, put it in to bake and removed it to cool when the timer dinged.
At 5:00, I reminded Daughter 1 that it was time to cook the pasta and make the cheese mixture. Then I reminded her again. And again. Then once more. Daughter 2 told me to just make it myself. She assured me this was Daughter 1's request. Imagine my surprise (and Daughter 1's dismay) when as I was putting the finishing touches on the lasagna, Daughter 1 appeared in the kitchen and accused me of taking over her celebration!
Like a good momma, I threw Daughter 2 completely under the bus (complete with finger pointing), which caused Daughter 1 to scream and yell at her waitstaff until Daughter 2 screamed back that she was quitting!
I put the lasagna in to bake and began preparing the cheese bread. Daughter 1 promised me that she really wanted to make the salad, so just leave all of that for her.
At 6:37, a truce was reached and Daughter 2 was rehired as head waitress. Her first job was to go pick fresh flowers for the table. And to prepare the water glasses. And to light the candles. And to put down the blinds - because "stupid day light savings time, it's not romantical at dinner time anymore!" (A direct quote from Daughter 1)
At 7:19, Daughter 1 asked for my help in taking out the very browned lasagne, then I was ordered from the kitchen: "Momma, go put on something nice. Well, the nicest thing you have. Do you have anything nice to wear?" How well they know me...
Finally, at 7:34, The Dad and I were escorted to our candle-lit table, which was adorned with five votive candles and four tiny dandilions. We started with cheesy bread and then asked for our salads. The chef apologized for forgetting to make the salads (no kidding) and promised us extra big pieces of hot fudge cake to make up for it. Prior to being delivered our lasagna, we heard a bang, then a crash, then a slight bit of cussing. Daughter 2 opened the kitchen door just a crack and said, "Never mind what you just heard."
When we were finally served the lasagna - at 7:50 - we ate it despite the fact that Daughter 1 had just asked where we kept the mop. And as we ate, The Daughters ate their frozen macaroni while sitting on the damp kitchen floor. All the thought and work (or supervision in the case of Daughter 1) that went into making our anniversary dinner special, was the best anniversary gift of all. It was the most romantical dinner The Dad and I could ever remember having...
... Even when we had to clean up the kitchen ourselves!
