In this season of gushy Christmas letters

I will now recap a few of the highlights of my 2010 that would not make it into a Christmas letter.

1. The day I took Lily to the wrong birthday party and left her there. With complete strangers.

Long version: Lily came home with a birthday invite to Heaven's birthday party. I put it safely in the drawer where all random papers, school notes, important things that don't have to be dealt with immediately go. Lily took it back out at some point to admire it and, of course, lost it. We were positive of the date and the place of the party, just not the time. So we bought a present and started checking the park at 10 am. Nothing. 11 am. Nothing. 1 pm. A party! I pull up and Lily immediately sees a friend. She yells, "Lizbeth!" and runs off the play. I take the present over to the present table and ask a pair of grandparents, "Is this Heaven's party?" The Grandma says, "Yes, this is the party." I ask when I should pick Lily up and she points me to another lady who is busy decorating. I ask that lady who gives me a slightly strange look and says, "An hour?" in a voice that says she's a bit confused why I would ask that. I put the look and voice down to party stress and figure it must have said on the invitation what time the party would be over and so she's wondering why I'm asking. So I go merrily on my way, amuse myself at home for a hour, then come back for Lily. As I pull up I see that there are a disproportionate number of small toddlers and adults at the party and a surprising lack of second grade girls. I sit down next to Lily who happily announces, "Heaven never came!" To her own party? Then I notice two very small children, about 3 and 1, who have special cakes with a candle in them. The mother of the kids with cakes comes to check on them and I ask, "Whose party is this?" She answers with surprise that it's Roslyn's party. I apologize profusely, she's really nice, I sort of explain the mix up but leave out the part about Grandma because I don't want to make the family feel that I'm blaming everything on poor deaf Grandma, she says she just figured Lily was Lizbeth's friend (Lizbeth happens to be cousins with Roslyn), we leave the present with Roslyn even though she's inundated with presents already and her parents are having to force her to keep opening when she really just wants to play with the first thing she opened, I try to leave discreetly, Lily loudly insists on finishing her cake, I finally manage to skulk off with Lily in tow. The end.

P.S. It turns out Heaven's party was a 4pm. And Lily has been informed that she will no longer be allowed to attend birthday parties if the invitation is lost.

2. The day I caught one of my primary students getting a drink of water out of my diva cup.

Long version: Be forewarned. If you do not know what a diva cup is then you may not want to google it because understanding this story could be very disturbing for you.

This year Eliseo has become good friends with Daniel who also happens to be one of the children in my primary class at church. Daniel comes over often. He's a cute and funny kid who has no problem making himself at home. One day, after school, as I'm puttering around the house, I wander into the bathroom on some errand and stop dead in my tracks as I see Daniel gulping water out of my diva cup which I had rinsed that morning and set on the bathroom vanity. My immediate impulse is to scream at him to stop but I perceive in the same instant the awkward situation that would result when he wants to know what is so wrong about drinking from that cup. So I stand there and cringe mightily until he is done and runs out of the bathroom then I grab the cup and put it on the highest shelf I can find. The end.

3. The day I tried to imitate my children and fell on my bottom.

Long version: We arrive at church. Late, probably. The kids, on their way to the doors, all decide to stomp on a green plastic cover thing embedded into the grass. I'm guessing it's covering some sort of lawn sprinkling controls or something. I decide it would be cute and funny if I, also, stomp on it on my way into church. So I do. And my church shoe slides right over the green plastic and I ungracefully land flat on my bottom. I would like to say that no one saw me, but I can't. Although the plus side to being late to church is that there are not AS MANY people in the parking lot to see you when you do something ridiculous.

4. The day I fell on my bottom during choir practice.

Long version: I decide that joining the ward choir would be a good bonding experience for Lily and I. It's the first day we attend. I'm at the end of the row of altos. The choir director tells us to scooch over a tad. We scooch and scooch until I scooch myself right off the small step that leads down to the piano and I fall ungracefully onto my bottom. Lily looks at me like all daughters would look at their mother when she falls on her bottom in front of the choir on the first day.

I can't wait to see what new mortifications 2011 will bring.