The Day We Cut Cake with Cardboard…
You’d think a unicorn party would require magic. Turns out…it just required cardboard. Okay, honestly I am an absolute sucker for planning parties. Young, old, baby showers all the way to memorials. I am all for celebrating this crazy thing we call life. When my youngest, I call her Marvelous, asked for a unicorn party at the park?!? Hell yeah, sign me up! She was turning four, my little baby isn’t so little anymore! But I also knew this was one of those parties that she would probably have little inklings of when she is older.
The planning, it is so addictive. I am an incredible planner (doer needs some work!) so I got to work. How do I make this party the best it can be? I reserved the only ramada close enough to the playground way in advance, I made sure the Aunties were bringing the cake, I put my husband in charge of the food, and I was the lord of the activities!
So, what makes a unicorn party one you will remember? Actually, earning your very own unicorn of course! I planned out four different stations: a unicorn race, a unicorn stacking game, a necklace making station and a fake tattoo and hair clip station. Once a kid was done at one station, they were given a certain color unicorn and once they had all four they would come show me and I would bestow on them the Magical Rainbow Unicorn!!!
Yes, yes very cheezy, yes I had to get parent volunteers to host the stations, yes, I ran out of bags the kids needed to hold their unicorn family in, but it was AMAZING. I am not kidding when I say the three or four teenage boy cousins that were there even participated in every single station. I call that a massive win.
Now, the party had already started out a little rocky…or maybe I should say a little windy….okay a lot windy. I couldn’t even really complain about it because at the beginning of the week it was supposed to rain! I’d take wind over rain, no hesitation, but it made the streamers insane to work with, we had to make sure everything was somehow held down, and we all kind of hunkered down and helped each other and our kids stay as warm as we could. At least the sun was out!
“Time to sing Happy Birthday!” I shouted and everyone came up from the playground and the grassy area to sing to my little Marvelous, With the help of three different adults we were able to light the candle and keep it lit for the entire song and until she blew it out! Everyone cheered and then lined up for cake…
And then full realization happened. Yes, the Aunties took care of the cake, and yes, my husband took care of the food….but no one took care of the utensils -face palm- all the adults were either staring at the beautiful cake needing to be partitioned or scrambling to see if anyone brought a knife or spatula. Alas, we were without.
And then…no body panicked. Someone found cardboard. Someone else figured out how to use it. Before I could even process what was happening, the cake was being cut! The cake was dolled out and when the kids asked for forks they were told they get to eat like a unicorn would today. Instead of being upset about using their fingers, they laughed. The party was saved by a lot more people than just me.
I know it sounds small, and it wasn’t this magical profound act that happened, but honestly to me it was. In that moment, I realized something. Community isn’t the people who show up when everything is perfect. It’s the people who stay when it’s not.
Lately, life hasn’t felt neat or planned or fully in my control. There are a lot of moving pieces, some good, some bad. A lot of unknowns. But that day reminded me that I don’t have to hold everything together by myself. That through life, I have found a village, my village.
Maybe that’s the real kind of magic. Not the kind that makes everything perfect, but the kind that fills in the gaps when it’s not. The kind that looks like people, and laughter, and cardboard cake knives.
This is what whole feels like.
