March was all-consuming for us. As were the six months before March too, really. I mean, I may have mentioned Emily’s Bat Mitzvah once. Or twice. Or thrice. Or four times. Or five. Or six. Or about a hundred times. See? You can now understand the all-consuming bit.

If you know our firstborn at all, you know that while she’s fiercely independent and incredibly driven to be Mary Poppins-y practically perfect at everything she sets her mind to—typical of a first child, I’m told—she is also incredibly needy of our time and reassurance and ego-stroking and attention–again, typical of a first child, I’m told.

Her recent science project on the pros and cons of the government spending money on space exploration is the perfect example of the Dr. Jekyll and Miss Givemeyourattention that is my daughter Emily. She did all of the initial research herself—she could talk your ear off about space. But then she needed glitter glue, and a black three-sides poster board, and she absolutely needed to schlep it all the way to Milwaukee for Passover. And she needed help with the color printer. And she needed us to edit her slides, and then re-edit, and then reprint. And then she needed help wording her conclusion—and making a conclusion. She forced nine of her family members to sit around and help her with her project.

That’s how she was with her Bat Mitzvah. Exactly.

It’s funny because when I think back to when we first started party planning and talking about it and she mentioned all of the things she absolutely needed to have—glitter tattoos and photo booth and black and white whoopie pies and a flash mob and a Jenga-piece sign in board and a limo entrance and a solo dance on a stage and socks for dancing and sushi and a slideshow—we tried to warn her that not all of those things were going to happen.

Until they did.

Because of her sheer will and determination. And her ability to get us to do her very will.

There are hundreds more photos from the party, but since March is over and I know you are all kind of a little bit over all of this, I’ll urge you to look to Facebook for more pics and to my YummyMummyClub blog where I will be sharing information about all of our amazing vendors and special people who made the party such a ridiculous success—from the invitations to the hair and makeup to the photobooth to the whoopie pies.