As children, Nicolette, myself, and our brother all had birthdays within days of one another and so, inevitably, one, shared, birthday party. A few days ago, my sister threw her first three-for-one birthday party. God love her.
Let me begin this post with a few background statements.
A) We grew up lower-middle-class-extremely-poor. My mom collected free milk and cheese in a line with other families on Saturday mornings. We always qualified for free lunches. And in our youngest years, the local church would donate a bag of gifts and food for us at Christmas.
B) Because of our aforementioned childhood financial status, my siblings and I have somewhat of a "poor person" mentality. Although our brother is the most difficult to pinpoint, my sister and I wear our status on our sleeves. -And let me state this, neither of us is "poor" by any means at this stage in life.- My openly poor mentality comes across in my thriftiness. I use coupons, go on discount days, and shop the clearance racks. I rarely buy something full price and if I do, I feel sick to my stomach. This horrifies and annoys my husband who never knew what it was life to be poor. My sister, on the other hand, does many of the same idiosyncrasies as I, but also has the ability (good or bad) to splurge. Because of these two factors (poor childhood/splurging adult), the parties she throws for her children also appear a little...much.
So Saturday came around and Nicolette threw the party of the year complete with two live clowns (Splash and Slick), a photo props station, pinata, potato sack race, two bounce houses, and carnival games. It also included real peanuts, a sno cone machine, a cotton candy machine, cupcakes and cake. For her oldest child, a complete Ring Master's outfit.
Prior to the big day, she had a professional photographer photograph her three Littles in carnival-themed costumes (Ring Master, Elephant, Strong Man, Lion Tamer, etc.) and props. These, she had framed and placed around the building she rented with fun signs such as the picture of her youngest (as an elephant) with a "Welcome to the Carnival" sign and a "Big Top: Peanuts! Popcorn!" sign beside it.
She had legit sno cone cones, popcorn bags, and popcorn buckets to store all the clown noses, candy, and other goodies the children were winning and taking home with them. There were a hundred balloons and the clowns made additional balloon animals. There was magic.
It was non-stop entertainment and exhaustion. Not the least of which fell upon Nicolette who went home with a headache.
It was a great party and I think everyone felt the excitement, children and adults. But before it all happened, there was a phone conversation she and I shared which is the heart of this post.
***
"Our Labor Day party is cancelled." I sent this mass text to 15 of our closest friends and family. The week before, as hinted about in this post, Big Strong Man and I found some unwanted guests in our home.
As our very first guests for Dinner Club were arriving, our middle son, Demitri, who had had a fever all day and was going to watch cartoons downstairs in the playroom, came running back up the stairs. It was literally,
"Hello Rebecca, welcome to our house..."
And then Demitri running up the stairs screaming, "snake!"
What.
The.
Crap?
As Big Strong Man and I tried to reassure him that is must have been a cord he saw, he adamantly insisted that there was a snake on our children's bounce house.
Laughing insecurly, Big Strong Man went to see about the snake and immediatly returned to get his boots on and grab an axe. Not one, but three baby snakes were in our basement.
Pause.
I. Hate. Snakes.
Completely.
Entirely.
Undeniably.
They are freaky. They are nasty.
I think they represent evil.
As our next set of friends arrived, and eventually our third, each was told about the "situation" in our basement and, graciously, no one went running away. After being downstairs for longer than I would have liked (and for a reason I wish had never been), Big Strong Man returned to us stating proudly and rather disgustedly, that he had found a fourth snake and each lay, decapitated.
While in the basement, decapitating, he called our landlords and informed them of the snakes while practically screaming, "what are you going to do about this?". As it was, they had a professional come by early the next day to remove the dead snakes (all light and dark brown striped), and inspect both the inside and the outside of our house for entrance points and additional snakes. The snakes he found -the same ones BSM decapitated- were all baby corn snakes. Non-venomous. They were "only" as thick as his pinky-finger and about 12 inches less or shorter. After declaring this a "random, fluke" that they ever got in in the first place, he practically swore on his children that we would not find another. The next day we found another.
It has now been two weeks and I only had one complete break-down/panic attack during which I took the boys and refused to return home until Big Strong Man was there to make sure that no snakes had made their way upstairs or on to any of the traps our landlords placed in the basement. A snake trap, by the way, is pretty much just a sticky paper on which they slither (ew) and cannot get off of.
So, the big question you may have (I know I have asked this 100 times in the last 14 days), if they were all babies...where is the momma?
Oh man.
Again, the specialist insisted there was no more snakes and we found another. But since then -since the traps had been put in place, since any holes or could-be holes have been patched and filled, since we jimmied a towel under the section of door in the very back on our indoor porch which is not covered by the door flap- we have not seen any sign of a snake. *sigh*
The thing is, I am still very fearful of our downstairs. When BSM went down to clean up and look around (a few days after the specialist had come, BSM decided that he had had enough and was not going to be afraid of his own house), he tried to have our sons come down as well. "They need to not be afraid", he had said. But I insisted they needed to be upstairs, safe. I cried and eventually yelled at BSM letting him know that I was not at all comfortable and, although I was forcing something against his will, he would have to do the same to get our sons down there. I simply was not having it.
He spent three hours downstairs that day and we have never had another problem with snakes.
***
"Since your Labor Day party is cancelled, we are wondering what your plans are for this weekend?", asked Nicolette. "Well", I began, "BSM has a Fantasy Football draft party this Friday in North Carolina and we are actually thinking of going there and visiting with some friends." Drop. The. Phone. "Um, what?", asked the voice on the other end.
"Yeah", I continued, "we thought it would be a good excuse to actually see friends and visit old stomping grounds. It's exciting- it has been 6 months already!"
"But what about the kids birthday party? Are you still coming?"
"Yes", I assured her, "we will be there. Our plan is to leave here early Thursday morning, and leave there early Saturday morning. It's perfect".
The thing was, to Nicolette, this was far from perfect. After getting audibly upset with our choice to go away for a few days and still try to make it to the party (which she was convinced we would not be able to do), she pretty much hung-up on me. After a few days, she called and casually-with-a-hint-of-bitterness said, "I am just calling everyone who was a "maybe" to see if you will be at the party or not."
"Um, yes, I told you we would be there", I responded, equally frustrated.
"Yeah, but, you are also making that trip to NC and...", she reminded me. As if I didn't already know. We ended-up finishing our conversation annoyed with one another. She was entirely convinced we would not be there, or we would be late, and this unnerved her to no end. I was annoyed that she was so upset over something which may-or-may-not even happen and, I reminded her, we could only try our best, whether we were driving to the party from our home -two hours away- or from another state, -eight hours away-.
Eventually, everything came at me like the turning on of a light bulb. I am terrified that there may be another snake in our basement and the fear of the unknown is giving me paralysis. I will not even do laundry because our laundry room is in the basement. (After it piled-up for a few days, I declared that BSM would have to take it over. He has willingly/not-willingly obliged).
The fear of unknown was also giving Nicolette paralysis. Neither one of us could move on because we trapped ourselves in a place of not being in control and not being able to be alright with that.
As I type, I am adjusting to the idea of returning to the laundry room at some point. I am not in a rush for my sake, but for that of my heart and soul. It is better to not live in fear. To conquer fear. And to live life in spite of fear.
***
The party she threw was awesome. She apologized for her anxiety and rudeness and Big Strong Man ate sugar until he puked. All is well.
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