Guess what I did last night?
That's right. I watched the Royal Wedding, and I'm not ashamed to say it.
I was 13 when Princess Diana married Prince Charles and I remember being at sleepaway camp in Maine. ALL of the girls got up in the middle of the night to watch the wedding. Wearing our pajamas, we carried our blankets and pillows through the woods from our cabins to the main lodge and set up camp in front of the only TV on site - a massive cube on legs set at one end of a log cabin. We had to adjust the rabbit ear antennae a few times to get a clearer picture, and it was a little grainy, but I remember seeing Diana float out of the carriage and down the aisle. It was history in the making and I savored it.
I really wanted my kids to have a memory like that.
So I posted a Facebook status saying "I'm watching the Royal Wedding tonight...who's with me?" and got a call from a girlfriend who shared my enthusiasm for the fantastical nuptuals saying "WE ARE!"
She invited us to sleep over so we could wake the kids together in the middle of the night to watch the wedding.
Izzy was skeptically on board "Okay."
"Don't you want to?? This is history here! You'll be witnessing HISTORY!! AS IT HAPPENS!" I couldn't believe she wasn't more enthusiastic. Sometimes kids just don't "get it.""Fine."
Of course, Livi was PSYCHED! Ben passed on the experience with a "um...no thanks, Mommy" and he stayed home with Scott.
We drove over to my friend's house at 9pm and the kids went to sleep. My friend's husband was good enough and let me take his side of the bed while he moved to his son's room. The "boys" did not want to be disturbed.
Then my friend and I went over the schedule of "things not to miss" from CNN and set the clock for 2:15am (when the procession to the Abbey would be wrapping up). The alarm went off. We turned on the TV and it was suddenly like being 13 years old again (but in High Def). We watched as guests paraded in. We rated hats and outfits (and can I just say "What the heck was Princess Beatrice and Eugenie wearing?? They looked like evil step sisters in a Tim Burton film!)
We giggled and gasped. And when the debate over what color the Queen would wear was finally put to rest, we agreed that the queen was cute but looked like a Peep. When it was closer to "bride time" we woke the girls who joined us in bed. We all snuggled together and watched a fairy tale come to life.
Like any wedding, there were lulls and when the couple went to sign the Wedding Register we totally lost the kids. Izzy asked "Is that it? Can I go back to sleep now?"
This morning, exhausted, I drove the kids to school from my friend's house. Izzy said "I'm happy I did this. In 15 years I can say I watched the wedding."
I can live with that. She at least "gets it" and that sometimes you do things because they'll mean more later on. Like when she has kids and there is another Royal Wedding (William and Kate's children?) and she wakes her kids in the middle of the night to snuggle in bed and watch history be made.
