10,000 daze

Friday afternoon was pretty busy. After picking up Joseph from school, blogging about the experience for the second day in a row, and getting some snacks for the boys, I took Joseph to his first day of fall soccer. When we got there I met up with my friend Catherine and we spent the whole time chatting. Since her car was in the shop that day I had lent her our sedan. She assured me she would get the car key and car back to me sometime soon. I said she could just leave the key under our doormat but she said she'd give it back in person sometime that weekend. No worries. I was in no rush.

And I was in no rush as we left soccer. I talked to some parents I recognized from spring soccer, and we laughed about how we were both driving blue 2005 minivans recently gifted by family. Eventually I got all the kids in and we headed home. There was a bit of rush hour traffic so it took a little while to make it back, but we had time to eat grilled cheese sandwiches before we left for Joseph's school's ice cream social. I had wanted to eat the boys' crusts before we headed out but when I went back to the table Kevin had cleaned everything up. That didn't seem like a priority right then, but whatever.

So we went and it was jam packed! Kids in kindergarten through 8th grade were squished onto that tiny playground running around and eating ice cream. Joseph was having fun but I was all too ready to go home and leave those crowds and get some quiet time after bedtime. I figured Kevin would work on his paper that evening and I could clean and read and catch up on blogging about fun things we've done since Jacob has been born.

We drove home and began the slow walk up the driveway with Matthew. Joseph lamented that he hadn't gotten to play with any friends today despite recess, soccer, and the ice cream social. We promised he would get a chance sometime soon. I unlocked the door and it didn't work. I tried again and still the handle didn't work. Somehow the other lock had been locked! Once I figured that out we were able to go inside. I starting telling Kevin that Matthew had probably locked the other lock and I'd need to keep an eye on him, thinking of the time he had locked us out back in June.

Suddenly, I got startled when I saw one of my kids hiding under the coffee table, wiggling around. But then I looked around and saw both Joseph and Matthew standing next to me. Who what?

Then I saw who it was. It was Joseph's friend N! What? What was he doing there? That sure was funny that they had used our car key to get into our house.

Before I had time to sort through that logic, not only Jesse and Catherine jumped out but also Lyndon and Chelsie. Oh, that makes sense, I thought for a millisecond, because I've been in contact with them about when we'll see them now that they have moved to Boston. Then . . . what?! What are they doing in my house?! How did they get in too?

I look at Kevin as I processed this shock. "Wait, did you know about this?"

"Happy 10,000th day!" he said, and then I saw the table. It was covered in donuts, cookies, gifts, and a poster saying "Happy 10,000th day!"

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. "There's someone you need to meet!" was the phrase I settled on, getting Jacob out of his car seat and handing him to people.

The next few minutes I was still in a daze. "I don't even know what state I'm in right now," I said a few times. These were Michigan friends, but we were in . . . Connecticut? All these worlds were colliding!

Then I looked at Lyndon and Chelsie again. "You're not driving back tonight, are you?"

"Nope, we're spending the night!" I didn't even know how to react to this happy news.

I turned to Catherine. "Wait, was your car even in the shop!?" I asked accusingly though I had picked her and her kids up from the shop that morning. They assured me it was. "I told you you could leave our key under our doormat!"

"And instead Kevin left your house key there!" they responded. This was all too crazy for me.

And then there was this whole 10,000th day thing. "I scheduled this in my calendar!" I exclaimed. "I saw it there just a few weeks ago!"

"I deleted it," Kevin said with a grin. "I didn't want you to remember it." And I didn't. All I had really planned to do was buy a 100 Grand candy bar (it's kind of like 10,000 after all), but instead there was this big party with all these things!

10,000 donuts can go fast when kids are involved.

There were 10,000 kernels of popcorn (counted by hand, apparently), 10,000 mini chocolate chips, 10,000 water beads, 10,000 fingernail stickers, 10,000 little mosaic square, and 10 packs of 1000 little stars. "It's surprisingly difficult to find things that come in packs of 10,000," Lyndon commented.

"I better not let my kids get into these," I thought to myself. (They already have.) Then Catherine had made cookies (not 10,000, but delicious nonetheless) and there were donuts made into the shape of 10,000 that were quickly devoured.

"This is not a real holiday," I kept saying to Kevin. "10,000 days is a made up thing." I thought of the Office episode when they surprised Meredith with a birthday party more than a month before her actual birthday.

"Birthdays happen once a year. This only happens once every 10,000 days! And hey, you celebrate square root of 10 day, so you can celebrate this too," he responded. (Should I now celebrate it as 8th root of 10,000th day?)  And then he began a timer. "Time to commemorate your 10,000 days over the next 10,000 seconds." Each time a timer went off he announced what had happen on the equivalent day of my life. "You just got baptized." Almost an hour later he said, "You just had your 16th birthday." And so on.

Meanwhile I did my best to act like a normal person and talk to my friends about life and driving on the East Coast and grocery stores and how they had set all of this up.

"Do you remember when Lyndon texted to ask what year you were born?" Kevin asked.

I did. I had had a Facebook post a day before that text that mentioned it had been 10 years I had graduated from high school, so I thought that was maybe why he had asked. But why ask Kevin? It's not like he couldn't have asked me.

"That's when we began planning it." It had been a very sneaky process for Kevin. He had to basically delete things as he went along so I wouldn't glance at the plans and spoil the surprise. That afternoon had been especially tricky for him as he had to reply to the surprise party texts without me noticing. But somehow he had managed to do it and I was completely in the dark.

And I was still processing things.

"You're staying the night? My house isn't clean though!" I hadn't gotten quite enough sleep the night before so when I got Matthew and Jacob down for naps I immediately took one too instead of clearing up lunch dishes or decluttering. It wasn't horribly messy -- we'd had the missionaries over on Tuesday so there hadn't been much time for things to get too out of control, but there were still papers piled on my desk and undusted bookshelves and bags and backpacks all over the place. Thankfully the sheets for the futon were clean since I had washed them after my cousin Megan's visit last week. But still, I was not prepared for this. Next time there's a lesson on the Second Coming, I'm going to use this as an example, I decided. Whole thief in the night thing and all.

"That's why I did a bit of cleaning while you were coming home from soccer and before we headed to the ice cream social," Kevin reassured me.

"That's why the crusts were gone!" I realized. That table had looked awfully shiny.

Eventually our kids were all tired enough after some hardcore playing that it was time for the Stricklans to head home and the Garretts to put their girls to bed. I tried not to be too self-conscious as I read dialogue-heavy books to Joseph in front of adults and then sent him to bed.

After the kids were down, we decided to play Killer Bunnies for old time's sake. As usual, Kevin built up his empire quickly but was ultimately unable to withstand attacks from three disgruntled foes. I ended up winning, which I suppose was fitting as the 10,000th day girl. Other than the fact that I was still in shock, the whole time as we played and talked it felt as though we hadn't been a year since we'd seen each other. By the end of the game it was really late, so we all headed to bed. I still spent the next two hours processing what had just happened, but I eventually fell asleep.

My 10,000th day was his 50th day, turns out.

The next day was square root of 84 day. In honor of that momentous occasion we ate breakfast cooked in a 9x13 pan (I'm sure there's some connection to 84 there), parked our cars at 84 Trumbull Street, and walked around Yale. After lunch at Bar Pizza, the Garretts headed back up to Boston. I still spent some of the day trying to figure out how this all happened and pestering them via text about how it all came to fruition.

I still don't think a 10,000th day merits quite so much celebration. But it's definitely great to have so many Michigan friends close by again, especially ones that are so fun and thoughtful. And if I had to choose the ideal way to spend my 10,000th day of life, it basically would have been exactly how it went.