Learning to Let Go . . .

Ok, this weekend we had my youngest daughter's 8th Birthday party. I was trying to talk her into having an American Girl Tea Party. I thought we could have a hair station for the dolls and girls, they could decorate a shirt for their dolls, paint a tea cup, fun, fun, fun. Well, my daughter, exercising her own opinion, decided she wanted a bowling party. Quick flashback to the 1970s watching my dad bowl in a league. The smell of stale cigarettes, the cardboard food, the matching polyester shirts and watching Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. Good times back then but I now liken the alleys with the "Big Lebowski" and "Kingpin". Is that the image I want to portray to my daughter's friends???? But the truth is, it's not about what I want but what my daughter wanted . . . after all, it was her birthday. So I learned to let go. I had a really cute idea for a homemade invite. She said she wanted to make her own so she whipped up a flyer on the computer. I learned to celebrate the fact that she has really mastered the computer graphics with an adorable invite and not the fact that it didn't have a certain look or meet certain standards I put on myself. When we picked out her cake, I let go that it didn't "match" the bowling theme but looked like a giant hamburger (and by the way, it was THE hit of the party!!). And after we all bowled, ate bowling alley food and cut the hamburger cake, my precious little daughter gave me the biggest hug she could muster and thanked me for one of the best days of her life! With cardboard pizza sitting like a brick in my stomach, the biggest smile on my face and the warmest feeling in my heart, we left the bowling alley, hand-in-hand. Sometimes, learning to let go is just what a mom needs to do.