Who is the best there ever has been.
Who had a birthday last week.
It's not very easy to pull a surprise over on The Man, he either catches me, guesses it, or I just plain give it away because I suck on all levels when it comes to keeping a secret that I'm excited about.
I think I've finally found the trick: plan multiple surprises.
Surprise #1 was to have a bunch of balloons in the kitchen waiting for him when he woke up in the morning. He's the first one to venture out into the dark house in the morning so we wanted them waiting there for him first thing. I wanted to hang letters and pictures from the kids on the strings of the balloons.
After work on the day before The Man's birthday I picked up a large amount of balloons and stuffed them into the back of my car. I pulled into the garage, went into the house, and was greeted with a chorus of, "Why are you later than usual?"
Let's point out that I was possibly doing something, shall we??
I rebuffed with, "I didn't think I was that late."
And it was dropped.
I pulled Casidee aside and told her the balloons were in my car and I needed her to grab them and take them to her room. When Dad and I went up to bed, she needed to sneak them into the kitchen so they would be there without his knowing.
As luck would have it, this would be the day that West would decide to have a lot of things that needed to be done in the garage. I panicked every time he flipped the light on that he would see the balloons floating in the back of my car, which he walked around every time he went into the garage.
At one point I just wanted to snap at him, "Would you quit going into the garage for crying out loud?!"
Our nephew was at our house helping West with some computer issues and as he was leaving, West carried some things out to his car for him, which was parked out front on the curb.
I hissed at Cas to hurry and get the balloons. But they were packed into the back and she struggled with getting them. About the time she was finally entering the house through the garage door, West was coming back in the front door. I was frozen in the hallway between the front door and the kitchen (which is were the garage enters). He stopped for a second and slipped his shoes off. I hoped he'd put them in the hall closet as usual and turn back to the office so Cas could slip by to the stairs unnoticed, but he walked past the hall closet and turned the corner of the kitchen... headed to the garage door.
I held my breath and followed him.
Cas had side stepped into the laundry room and was standing in the doorway of that room with the balloons held behind the wall.
West looks at her as he walks by, and I hoped that he would just keep walking into the garage so Cas could hightail it to her room.
He stops and looks at her.
Then he cranes his neck to see what it is that she's doing, exactly, because let's face it, it wasn't natural for her to be standing like that in the laundry room.
And I yell, "Don't look at her!"
But he's seen it. And he's laughing.
Surprise #1 is busted.
Surprise #2 was a present. West had been keeping an empty cologne bottle in our bathroom. It was his favorite but he didn't know where to buy it. He was keeping the bottle in hopes of being able to find it again and buy more.
I had the thought to look at the bottom of the bottle, and indeed, there was a sticker saying the name of the cologne and the fact that it was made by none other than Victoria's Secret.
During my lunch break, again on the day before his birthday, I drove to the closest mall to my work place and purchased the cologne for a birthday present. He doesn't look at the account everyday and I was hoping that by buying it "last minute" he wouldn't see the charge until after he'd opened it.
That night as we crawled into bed he says, with a smile on his face, "So what did you buy at Victoria's Secret? I saw it on the account."
I huffed. "You don't know what I bought there."
At least that surprise was only half busted.
For Surprise #3 we took turns slipping out to the garage and writing on the windows of his car. This was after the balloon fiasco and we (or maybe just me?) were on edge. But he had settled onto the couch and seemed to be done with his garage tinkering.
The door from the kitchen to the garage sticks and is loud when you open and close it and I felt jittery every time I knew someone was creeping out there to write on his car, but finally, for the first time that night, The Man seemed oblivious.
The thing with having multiple surprises is that ONE is bound to come through.
The next morning I listened from the bedroom as West left to go to work.
And I heard him shout from the garage. "Whoa!"
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Happy birthday, baby. One and a half out of three isn't bad.
When he opened his presents that nightI was able to say, "See? You didn't know what I bought at Victoria's Secret."
The lesson of this birthday experience is: if you have a man who's hard to surprise, just plan multiple surprises. One is bound to come through.
(P.S. if you check out our facebook page at 7:00 pm mountain time, we're participating in a round robin giveaway... which means a giveaway from us, plus a round of links to other giveaways as well. So check it out, it will be fun).
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