June 2nd was my Little Guy's 11th birthday. How did he get so big? Actually he's massive - 5'2" and a man's size 8.5 to be exact. In true mini-chef fashion, he made his own birthday cake - a white chocolate affair which was absolutely delicious and with several tons of butter, chocolate and confectioner's/icing sugar had no calories whatsoever. We went out to dinner on the actual day too. Time was when his fave place was the Rain Forest Cafe (which I highly recommend if you're visiting Chicago). Now that he's an aspiring chef and a complete foodie though, we headed off to Eataly.
Oh my word - it's a sort of Italian food court and shopping mall - which sounds kind of weird, but you walk in and say "Wow". He was in heaven! We ate at the pasta restaurant (now that the Man-Child is totally vegetarian) and every one of us had the most delicious meal. I had ravioli with peas inside - yum!
June 5th was the Man-Child's Senior Prom (he really needs a new nickname - answers on a postcard please). He decided to go formal this year so we rented a Tuxedo/Dinner jacket. He was planning to punk it up a little by wearing his new red Converse, but when he put the suit on, he was so taken with the James-Bond-shaken-not-stirred effect that he wore his new black sensible shoes. Of course he still added a twist but everyone thought he looked magnificent.
Of course it didn't come without incident. (Hey - I have a blog to write and the kids are under strict orders to do something blog-worthy.)
He phoned me when prom finished to tell me the jacket he was in possession of wasn't actually his. Someone had walked off with his jacket - or rather, when he got back to his seat, his jacket wasn't on the back of it. Sensibly he waited till the end, and when no other jackets materialized, he took the last one. It clearly wasn't his as the sleeves ended just south of his elbows. Surely the kid who had his jacket would notice when it swamped him?
Problem however - the chances of said kid actually putting the jacket back on before returning it to the rental place were minimal. I mean who sashays round in a Tux in private? (OK, some of us might....). Anyway, to cut a labo(u)r intensive story short, this was a three-way switcheroo whereby the owner of the jacket in our possession didn't actually have ours.
Cue High School wide e-mails, prompting third kid to say "Oh, I think I might have someone else's jacket." All the moms/mums involved sorted it out and returned jackets to the respective rental places. Don't we always?
Phew. Didn't fancy paying for a whole new Tux-that-might-never-be-worn-again.