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A quick lesson in adaptability from someone who's terrible at birthdays

Last Saturday, my cousin was having a birthday party for his son.

Truthfully, I'm not the best at the whole birthday thing.

Whenever I get an evite, I usually forget to RSVP in a timely manner, OR even worse, I've FORGOTTEN the day of the party and just not shown up.

This happened a couple of months ago, and it taught me to make sure that I pass the evite to my husband and put it in the calendar right away.

Usually, we're that family that is a tad late to the party because we're getting the gift ON THE WAY to the party because we're super thoughtful and plan out our lives properly ahead of time.

Can you tell how much I love birthdays? 😂

But... this day was different.

This day we were running EARLY.

The party was a bit of a drive from our place, but our ETA was 30 minutes before the party was going to start.

We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves.

We were able to get our gift, eat a little food before arriving (we like to "top off" because usually the food part isn't until the end and my kids get hangry lol), AND still had like 5 minutes to spare.

It was in a recreational center that was pretty fancy.

They had sports areas, a gym, lounging spaces, and a fancy pool.

We get to security and tell them we are here for the birthday party.

They say, "Oh yes, the pool party is right down the hall."

WAIT.

POOL party?

My stomach dropped immediately. I looked at my husband. He looked back at me with his mouth ajar.

We turn to the security guard and I say, "Oh my goodness, I didn't know it was a pool party..."

The kids are like, "POOL party?"

Harper, my youngest, digs the dagger in deeper and proclaims, "Mom, how are we going to swim if we don't have our swimming clothes?"

Me: Yes, well, we can fix this. Is there somewhere near here that we can pick up some swimwear?

Security guard: Yes, there's a Ross 5 minutes away....

[we're already running out the door lol]

This is fine guys, everything is fine.

As we make a mad dash to the van, I ask Fred if I had sent him the evite.

He responds that I did, but that he just glanced at it.

I bring up the evite and it's literally the following graphic:

My husband and I bust out LAUGHING.

OF COURSE the one time we're so happy we RSVPed, we made sure we were on time, OF COURSE this is a POOL party.

But that's how life is sometimes.

Sometimes you just don't read the invite...

... and have to swim naked.

What I appreciated about the whole experience though is that we were able to adapt and adjust.

We could have:

• Let it ruin the rest of our day
• Blamed each other for not reading the invite
• Just been in a bad mood from having to go buy swimwear last minute

Instead, our kids saw that we were able to laugh it off and make the best of the situation.

They still got over an hour of swimming in and had a great time celebrating their cousin's birthday.

The Lesson (Because Every Newsletter Needs One LOL)

Life rarely goes as planned.

The people who thrive aren't necessarily the ones who plan perfectly - they're the ones who can pivot gracefully when things go sideways.

Question for you: What's a time when you had to pivot unexpectedly? Did you have to swim naked or make a Ross run?

You can reply to this email - I do read these and would love to hear from you!

Okay, stay sprightly my friends!

Tasha

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