When my husband and I happily accepted to be in Stephanie and Rodney’s wedding, we forgot about one little twenty-seven pound detail: Mountain Child. Of course she would come. But what in the world were we supposed to do with her during one of the most meaningful moments of my sister-in-law’s life? Nearly every single person that we knew that could take care of her during the wedding was attending it. So we did what any organized, sane parent would do: we totally winged it.
Winging it is not my nature. I am the absolute opposite of “winging it”—I usually like to…well, walk it out with my feet planted firmly on the ground, preferably with a GPS system in hand. Life, of course, in its nature is as chaotic as a hurricane. So I usually get a little twitchy around the eyes when that happens. Weddings are the epitome of this universal rule of life. And if weddings are stress/chaos level equivalent of a hurricane, then being in a wedding with no one to watch your two-year old in the ceremony is probably a lot like getting caught in that hurricane in a little rowboat. When it was looking like that was our reality, I began to secretly wonder if Stephanie would notice if I just sat in the audience during the wedding and give this whole notion of mommy and daddy being in a wedding.
But I pressed on. I had loosely arranged for a couple of very kind and unsuspecting family members to “keep an eye” on Mountain Child, knowing full well that a toddler explosion could occur at any minute. A serious occasion where everyone must be quiet right before dinnertime? It takes a special kind of insane to attempt something like that.
I decided to just have a little talk with Mountain Child about weddings a few days beforehand. “Stephie and Rodney are getting married! And we are going to have a party for them.”
“OHHHH MARRY! CAKE! BALLOONS!” Mountain Child is getting quite excited about this now.
“Yes. There will be cake. But no balloons. But there will be pretty flowers and bubbles.”
“BUBBLES?!?!” Now Mountain Child is beside herself with excitement. “STEFFY AND RAHREE GETTING MARRY!!” She claps her hands and decides to sing a song for the occasion.
A while later, I bring up the wedding again. “Listen—during the wedding, there is a part where you have to stay in your seat and be quiet. If you do a good job of doing that, you’ll get cake and bubbles.”
Mountain Child is now a little suspicious. “STAY IN SEAT?”
“Yes, you have to stay in your seat and be really really quiet. Like a butterfly.”
“OHHHHH! BUTTERFLIES!! MARRY BUTTERFLIES??”
“No, there won’t be butterflies at the wedding. Just cake and bubbles and pretty flowers. But you have to be good and quiet so you can get cake and bubbles.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! WANT CAKE!!!!! LOOONS!!! HAPPY TO YOU, HAPPY TO YOU!” Mountain Child proceeds to march around the house yelling this at the top of her lungs for the next half hour.
Oh, never mind. What happens will happen. Thank goodness we can practice at this during the wedding rehearsal.
We arrive at the wedding rehearsal and I try to give Mountain Child another pep talk. By this time, she is hungry and excited and about a volatile as a tornado. To restrain her means that it will be nuclear meltdown and I would miss the rehearsal. I decide to leave her alone and pray that she doesn’t tear down the place. Surprisingly, her blood sugar never dipped to cause any meltdowns and she was extremely happy the whole time. The only problem was that she was under the impression that the wedding was somehow her stage to debut herself.
My husband and I made the decision a while ago that Mountain Child wouldn’t be in the wedding because she was at an age that was too unpredictable for being a flower girl. But apparently we should have conferred this decision with Mountain Child. She marched right down the aisle after the real flower girls and took her place right up front. When the pastor talked, she talked louder. And to top it off, she went down the row of everyone in the wedding and ran through their legs. Everyone thought it was just adorable…except for me.
I tried my best to get her sit down. But she was having none of that. Plus by the end of the rehearsal, she was REALLY hungry which meant that she REALLY grumpy. To make her do anything was going to be showdown. Trust me; I am the type that will woman up to any showdown that my kid will give me. But the end result isn’t pretty and weddings are supposed to pretty, right? Oh, great, tomorrow is going to be an absolute fiasco.
The next day was the wedding. Stephanie looks absolutely gorgeous. Mountain Child looks just delectable in her flowered poufy dress and huge flower barrette in her hair. In fact, everything was just lovely, even despite the fact that there was one of the worst storms of the summer approaching the country club and we had to move everything inside. I am so terrified that my kid is going to be “that kid” that ruins the most significant moment of the whole evening that my eye uncontrollably twitches and I barely care about the huge storm and all of the stress associated with that. I am pretty sure that in most of the wedding photos I look like I am winking at the camera, my eye was twitching so badly.
My husband’s aunt takes Mountain Child to go sit down with her a bit before the wedding begins. We are fluffing Stephanie’s dress and primping in the mirror. And my head is pounding and my eye muscles are doing the meringue. It is completely out of my hands now. Mountain Child is just…out there, a hurricane ready to approach shore at any time. I begin to regret that I didn’t take advantage of the bar that was just outside of the dressing room at the country club.
When the big moment comes, I do the bridesmaid thing, smile pretty and walk down the aisle. I see Mountain Child sitting so still and quiet in her great aunt’s lap that I wonder if she had been drugged. When Mountain Child sees me, she smiles a huge grin and says, “HI MOMMY!” I smile back and put my finger to my lips. She settles back and remains quiet for the rest of the ceremony.
I can’t believe it. Yet I can. The amount of stress energy that I put into this whole event and it all turns out fine. It just figures that sometimes you prepare yourself for the hurricane and it somehow just dissipates into thin air.
And yes, Mountain Child did get her cake and bubbles.
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