I spend so much of my weekends on motion blur mode. (Long shutter speed?) The five of us are all rarely in the same place at one time. Between swimming lessons, figure skating, hockey, birthday parties, play dates, catching up on work, filling our poor, sad, empty fridge, catching up on laundry, catching up on exercise (110 squats, anyone? Sure, it feels great that today, but don’t even thinking about bending down tomorrow), catching up on emails, catching up on blog reading (…and don’t even get me started on the wormholes I often find myself down—looking at you etsy, pinterest, tumblr), and additional obligations, Sunday night comes and I am not only wiped, but I usually only see my husband in passing. Maybe.

Some weekends are particularly busier, like this past weekend was, as we attended the Bat Mitzvah of Emily’s very first friend Adina. Sure, I was there in research mode a wee little bit, but mostly I couldn’t stop thinking that these little girls used to just be these blobs that we’d throw into our strollers and schlep to mommy and me classes, and now they are twelve. TWELVE. Well, to be fair, Emily is just shy of twelve. It’s funny when I think about the few short months between the two girls, and her mother and I used to joke about how poor our planning was—4.5 months apart, but a full grade. It’s funny, really, because our lives, and the lives of these two girls have taken such different paths, not just different grades—different neighborhoods, different schools, even different hip-hop dancing day of the week—but there is still that ‘thing’ between them. That thing—the we did diapers together thing, the we walked for the first time together thing, we indulged our moms’ coffee drinking habit together thing—it’ll always be there. You can see it in their eyes, you can see it when they do see each other. It’s a lovely thing, that.

But oh my hot damn it took the Bat Mitzvah of Emily’s first friend to realize that my daughter is having a Bat Mitzvah on March 10th.

How is this possible when I don’t feel a day over, um, 22? 23, possibly?

She is going to be twelve.

So we are planning a party.

(I could use your help, actually.)

It’s a black and white masquerade ball. 

She was born on the Jewish holiday of Purim, so we thought it was perfectly fitting. Actually, she thought it was perfectly fitting. I am superbad at this whole party planning thing—she is basically planning the entire thing herself. I am just writing the checks, which is already a huge problem since…who writes checks anymore? I don’t even know where the find the checkbook!

Right now we are working on things like photographers and invitations and dresses and DJs and speeches and guest lists.

We are working on keeping things classy—not kitschy.

I mean, chances are good in three years from now, she will hate everything about that day.

I mean, MY Bat Mitzvah was easily the most awkward time in my entire existence, and my mother has photographic evidence of that in a giant 16×20.

We are thinking about decor (Do we want giant signs?) and activities (Do we want glitter tattoos?)(We most definitely want a photo booth!) and favors (Decorated cookies with ‘Emily’s Bat Mitzvah’ written on them? Socks for dancing?) and desserts (Black and white whoopie pies? Don’t mind if we do!) and videos and sign-in boards and how are we going to make use of the screens in the venue (Real-time #EmilysBatMitzvah Twitter feed? Baby pictures of star of the day?) and that we most definitely do not under any circumstances want a candle-lighting ceremony of any kind.

Did you know that the Bat Mitzvah candle-lighting ceremony was invented by a caterer who needed a stall tactic so he could have more time in the kitchen? It’s true. You know what? They are boring and no one really cares about them at all. We are firm believers in keeping things short—attention spans are wee.

We are planning a flash mob. It’s not to Gangnam Style.

I am way, way in over my head.

But at least there will be a flash mob.

And it seems that I already have a black and white dress from 1990…