Shared memories

You know how when your children do something embarrassing, the memory is burned on your brain forever, but you choose to believe that no one else noticed/remembers?

We were at a great birthday party on Saturday. The girls were all having fun, swimming, frolicking, what have you...

When suddenly, for some reason E decided that the water in the pool was too cold, so she declared to the parents of the birthday girl: "I'm never going in that pool again!"

Which twigged a memory in the Dad's head.

"Wasn't it last year that E said..."

[Now do the Wayne's World hand gesture/sound effect to indicate travelling back in time...]

Picture it: Same backyard, one year earlier.

Lunch was ready, so the kids were getting cleared off of the trampoline. E was next in line to go on it, so she chose to flip out about having to leave, declaring:

"THIS IS THE SECOND-WORST BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER!"

What was the first?

[Wayne's World flashback again, please.]

Picture it: The same summer, a few weeks earlier.

I chose the 'stop, drop and roll' method at another birthday party, and that turned out to be a bad idea. E was a terrible guest, refusing what was for lunch (and then when the parents offered to make something else she TOOK THEM UP ON IT!) and burst into tears during the games and was generally a weirdo.  Of course, when I picked the girls up and asked how the party was, she said, "It was great!" So I had no idea how it really went until the details started trickling out over the course of the evening...

Flash forward to the 'second-worst party' (there's no hand gesture for that--I'm sure there's a sound effect from Lost, but I don't have the energy to look it up right now) -- the parents from the first party are there too!

So she managed to mortify me in front of two sets of parents at once.  Both of whom I will see socially for at least the next 8 years as the girls go through school together.

But I was especially thrilled to find out that THEY REMEMBER IT TOO. In fact, other party guests said, "Oh yeah, I remember that!"

Good times....good times.

If you need me, I'll just be hiding under that picnic table over there.


p.s. I realize I mixed my references with the Wayne's World/Golden Girls combo, but whattaya gonna do?