Emily’s Bat Mitzvah is in 27 days. A month yesterday.

I have spent the better part of the last year working on invitations and accoutrements, dresses and shoes. I spend far too much time on Etsy, dealing with friendship drama, planning black and white poms, stickers with her logo on them, pricing out cellophane bags, help Emily write her speech, buying masquerade masks, making decisions about balloons, tracking down a Taylor Swift dress, looking for the perfect sign-in idea that isn’t what everyone else does (We found one—I am unreasonably excited about it) and oh my heavenly days, did you know that you can get cookies made with the Bat Mitzvah girl’s face on them?

I was feeling overwhelmed, of course, but simultaneously feeling confident that the ducks were finally all lining up in a semi-neat little row and there was a good chance that we were actually going to pull this thing off.

And then Friday happened.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, The Rosehill venue is officially closed.”

WHAT?! Wait…WHAT?! The Rosehill? As in, the place we had chosen in early summer to have this event? Closed. Exactly thirty days before.

Thirty days.

So, I did what any normal mother would have done. I cried and ate several (dozen) homemade chocolate chip cookies. And then some chocolate cream pie. And then some ice cream cake.

I don’t even like ice cream.

Emotional eating is a real thing, and you know what, it’s alive and well in the Toronto nosebleeds.

And then we got on the phone. And called, and called, and called, and called. We got on the internet and emailed, messaged, texted. We allowed friends to go above and beyond for us, calling in favors and recommending options for us. We threw all three kids in the car and went to see possible last-minute venues. We will be doing it again today. And tomorrow. And probably the next day.

It’s funny, this.

Emily’s Bat Mitzvah speech is about hidden miracles, that even though there’s no mention of god anywhere in the story of Purim (unlike, you know, the Passover story or the Hanukkah story, which included such big grand god gestures like giant seas splitting completely down the middle and oil lasting way longer than it should), it mostly just feels like a political soap opera full of coincidences and lucky breaks, but really, the miracles are happening all the time, right there in the middle of the soap opera drama, we just don’t realize.

We are hoping that this is one of them. Maybe this is a tiny hidden miracle happening for us.

Maybe it’s meant to be.

At the very least, Josh has his outfit all picked out.

So at least that’s something.