Epic Failure

Well, I had one of the top mom Homecoming failures in Homecoming history last week. Here's how it went down...

Matthew asked a friend of his to the Homecoming game. This is a new experience in our house! I'm trying not to freak out and just go with it. After all, this girl is JUST a friend, and she is a smart, sweet girl in lots of his classes. Of course, I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with most of my friends who have older kids to try and figure out what a "6th grade Homecoming date" entails. After much discussion, it was decided that they would meet at the game (no car date) and Matthew could buy her some nachos, or something of the like, with his own money.

T minus one day until the big game, and I get a call from a friend of Matthew's mom. Apparently, the big group of guys going to the game had made mums for their "dates". Or rather, the moms had made the mums. I got this call right before 2 football practices and a soccer practice across town. I was against the idea of making a mum, but didn't want Matthew or his friend to feel funny about it. Knowing that I had to get a mole taken off my face the next day, I knew it was Thursday night or never if this mum was going to be made.

After Mary Beth's soccer practice, I sputtered over to Hobby Lobby. I say sputter, because it was 8 o'clock in the evening, and we hadn't even had dinner yet. Not to mention that the next morning was "Crazy Hair Day" at the elementary and I needed to run to Walgreens to get hair dye spray. I walk into Hobby Lobby and see a huge line of woman at the counter buying ribbon. (Think HEB at Thanksgiving). These said women were from all sorts of 1A and 2A tiny schools within a 60 mile radius who all seemed very experienced in the whole "mum production".

I, on the other hand, had not really studied a mum since I last wore one in 1989, and was a COMPLETE novice. After waiting behind the other mothers for a good 20 minutes, it was my time for professional help. Fortunately, there was a kind older woman there who took pity on my deer in the headlights expression and gave me the top 27 steps in making the perfect Homecoming mum.

Joyous.

After purchasing tons of ribbon and other mum paraphernalia, Mary Beth and I wearily drove to Walgreens to pick up our final purchases of the evening. Walking toward the hair dye spray aisle, I see a display of pre made, cute, 50% off mums for our school. Not only did they have a wide assortment of mums, but they had one left that was smaller than the rest. I thought that this one would be perfect, since it was sort of borderline that we even buy this girl a mum, and as a smaller 6th grader, she would appreciate her mum not trailing on the ground.

Mary Beth and I quickly pick up the final small mum and head home to dinner, thrilled that I would not have to spend the remainder of my dwindling evening making a mum for a girl that is just a classmate of Matthew's! I did personalize the pre made mum with the letters of the girl's name. Matthew beamed with pride. DONE!

Fast forward to Homecoming night. We tailgated with Matthew's football team, and enjoyed watching the boys throw the football. I felt a little bad when I saw all the 6th grade girls walking around with ginormous mums that touched their ankles, but still felt reasonably good about my decision. One of the girls had gotten one of Matthew's friends a garter to put on his arm. Now, the garters the boys wear now are NOTHING like the simple garters that the boys wore in 1989. I looked closely at the garter that the friend was wearing which had a mum, shorter ribbons, a little glitz, and thought, "That looks exactly the the mum I got for..."

Oh. Snap. On Matthew's first Homecoming date night, I bought this poor girl a BOY MUM.

I felt a little like throwing up, but tried to keep it together. Not a few minutes later, his little date showed up and Matthew wanted to show his guy friends the mum he had gotten Lauren. After the boys saw it, Matthew came up to me with tears in his eyes and told me I had gotten the wrong mum for Lauren, and was there anyway I could run home and put longer ribbons in the mum? I looked at the clock and saw that there was no possible way it would work out time wise. After apologizing to him a million times, he put on a brave face and put the mum on his "date".

Matthew's sweet friends made him feel better by saying that Lauren wasn't a girly girl and probably didn't want a huge mum anyway. Lauren loved it and seemed very happy to be hanging out with Matthew. Crisis averted. I was able to look over several times to see them that night (Intermediate school kids do NOT sit with parents!) and could tell that they had a ball.

The next morning, Matthew and I went for a walk. I told him that one of these days we would laugh about this. One of the few downfalls to being and oldest child is that the parents are doing things for the first time as well. Next year I will make a huge mum, with all of the ribbon I had bought for this year's Homecoming, and will never make THAT mistake again!