Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Surprise!!

So now I can finally post about the thing that's been occupying my time and my planning for the last few weeks.

This past weekend I went home to surprise my mom for her birthday! My dad and I started planning this the day after Christmas when I was sort of perusing flights online and found a cheap one for that weekend. Somehow we managed to make it more than a month without accidentally spoiling the surprise (which is shocking - I'm the worst when it comes to accidentally spoiling a surprise). When it got down to Friday afternoon and I was actually lying right to her (Mom: "What are you doing tonight?" Me: "nothing much, really" Mom: "are you going to watch the superbowl with the boys?" Me: "Yea, probably") it was DEFINITELY tough, but now I can say it was totally worth it.

Probably the biggest threat to maintaining the surprise were the issues with my flight (yes. again.). There was a pretty good amount of snow falling in Michigan on Friday, and it was rainy and windy in Boston. I had more confidence this time that the flight would actually get off the ground, but I knew it would be delayed. Sure enough, they took off a little late from Detroit and then were put in a holding pattern in Boston for half an hour because of the wind. While I was sitting in the terminal, the fire alarm tripped and went off for about 35 minutes, which was nice. Anyway, once we got on the plane and were about to take off, the plane instead turned around and went back to the gate because there was some sort of computer issue and they had to have a mechanic come on board to restart it ("just like your PC at home" according to the pilot - very reassuring). At this time I called my boss who had been teasing me for a week leading up to the trip that something was going to go wrong and I wouldn't make it. I told her it was all her fault and at we both laughed because as she said, "stuff happens to you when you fly that never happens to anyone else" and we decided that it's probably better if I just stay away from airports altogether. Anyway, the computer reset worked out and we took off, arrived an hour and a half late (which is not that bad) and they served free alcohol (which is the least they could do, really, for being very inconvenient). My little brother picked me up and we got to my folks' house around 1am where we tiptoed around in order to avoid waking my mother up - she's a very light sleeper.

Anyway, Saturday morning I woke up around 6:30am (excitement) and heard my parents in the kitchen chatting and reading the paper. My mom's back was to the hall so she didn't see me until I actually got into the kitchen and said hi. Her reaction was priceless: She shrieked "JESSIE!!?!???!?!?!???!!!" and hugged me harder than I've ever been hugged before, then had to sit back down because she was having palpatations. :) My dad and I could finally come clean about how hard it had been to keep it a secret and how when I was late coming in my dad was obsessively checking the flight status every time my mom left the room and how I felt bad about lying right to her face (which got me a, "you little stinker!"). I think it's safe to say she was surprised. :)

But the fun wasn't over! Little did she know that we coordinated with my older brother and his family to show up as well! About 1:30 in the afternoon they pulled up, my dad heard the car and opened the door to the garage. My mom was getting ready to work out so she wasn't paying much attention, just lacing up her ankle brace. My sister-in-law and nephew got right in front of her before she looked up and did a double take, saying "what are you guys doing here?!?". My nephew then leapt into her arms and said, "happy birthday, Grandma!" which can pretty much be classified as the cutest thing ever.

I still can't believe we pulled it off. But we did and she was definitely surprised and very happy. And keeping your mother happy is always a good idea. :)

2 comments:

Andrea said...

Aw! That's SO nice. You are such a good daughter :)

You've made me fearful of ever flying again - and also a little guilty for getting upset at the little things that do go wrong when I fly. It's all about perspective, I guess.

Anonymous said...

Awww. I think I'm going to mail this post to all my children! How totally cool.