I have lied to so many people over the past week and enjoyed every moment of doing so. You get to an age when your brain craves any kind of novelty and a chance to flex it's muscles. Planning a surprise party was the most exciting and scary thing I've done in a long time. We started to think about it at Christmas and finally decided to go for it 2 weeks ago. With the help of a few of my daughter's brilliant friends we made a guest list. As soon as the invitations went out I started to panic. "What am I doing," I thought, "I'd hate a surprise party!"
Amazingly, everyone kept the secret and she didn't have a clue.
The guest list was the first tricky thing to organise. When you are the parent of a teenager, you hear lots of names but you don't know them all. Organising parties for 5 year olds is so much simpler. You know what Chloe or Abbey or Ellie looks like and you know their parents. When they are 18 you have glimpsed the slight blond girl but you don't know if she's a Sophie or an Ellie or which Sophie or Ellie she might be.
Living in a family of nuts helps when staging subterfuge. Trying to get one of my daughter's friends on her own to ask her to give out some invitations was a team effort. "Can you go and see Dad? He's fussing about something I don't get what!" He then said, "I don't know why your mum couldn't have explained it!" Although it was odd it was no stranger than many of the conversations she's used to. Being an enthusiastic Facebook and Twitter stalker also helped.
Then I had to make and hide the cake.
On Friday evening we dressed up to the nines and headed off to orchestra practice. Telling everyone who told me I looked nice that I was off to the Blue Strawberry, allowing a few orchestra members to leave early because they were off to visit 'a friend' and making my Dad leave early because he was 'feeling unwell' were all beautifully told lies. So convincing that when my Dad arrived at our house people were surprised that he looked so well!
There were so many jobs to do before we could leave orchestra and the stress levels were rising about being late for our table reservation. I was surprised that she wasn't suspicious that I didn't want to unload the car and insisted that she entered through the side door but after being very shocked and a few tears of joy she loved it. Phewwwwww!
Living in a family of nuts helps when staging subterfuge. Trying to get one of my daughter's friends on her own to ask her to give out some invitations was a team effort. "Can you go and see Dad? He's fussing about something I don't get what!" He then said, "I don't know why your mum couldn't have explained it!" Although it was odd it was no stranger than many of the conversations she's used to. Being an enthusiastic Facebook and Twitter stalker also helped.
Then I had to make and hide the cake.
As I keep cake tins on top of the cupboards, hiding the finished cakes wasn't too difficult. To hide making it we made another cake for her to take out for a meal on her actual birthday.
On Friday evening we dressed up to the nines and headed off to orchestra practice. Telling everyone who told me I looked nice that I was off to the Blue Strawberry, allowing a few orchestra members to leave early because they were off to visit 'a friend' and making my Dad leave early because he was 'feeling unwell' were all beautifully told lies. So convincing that when my Dad arrived at our house people were surprised that he looked so well!
There were so many jobs to do before we could leave orchestra and the stress levels were rising about being late for our table reservation. I was surprised that she wasn't suspicious that I didn't want to unload the car and insisted that she entered through the side door but after being very shocked and a few tears of joy she loved it. Phewwwwww!
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