I’m teetering on the brink of my own meltdown. For several weeks, I’ve planned throwing Hope an intimate bowling party with a few of her friends. The bowling alley has a cool deal for unlimited pizza and bowling for $20 a head. Awesome.

I printed up five cute, but “sophisticated teen” invites, cause you know, we’re going to be 13 and all. Gave them to her, asked folks to RSVP by tonight so that I had time to call in the morning and reserve the lane. I hope to swing by the supermarket in the morning for a small cake and then party all night long like Lionel Richie.

Ok, until like 4pm because its date night, and I need to get cute by 6:30pm.

But this morning Hope said she’d only given one invitation away, and she hadn’t confirmed she was coming.

Say what now? How will there be a cute, little birthday celebration with tons of giggling gutter balls if you only gave away one invitation and this joint is tomorrow?

And so ABM is reminded of the mean girls at school who tease her about being adopted (I’m going to jack those little chickadees in the local Wet Seal one of these days; mark my words! #ABMdontplaythat), the social awkwardness that comes and goes based on Hope’s anxiety level, and the triage of social decisions that soon to be 13 year-olds must make on any number of absurd data points like…was Jenny’s lip gloss popping during English class yesterday or did Watermelandria (This Hope’s and my favorite imaginary ratchet name right now) really tell Christian that she thought his shoe laces where tied sexily for an almost 8th grader?

I can’t with middle school social dramas overlaying social anxiety surrounding her adoption story (which she chooses to tell or not at her own discretion). All I know is that these little somebodies needs to show up with a dang card at the bowling alley, and they better ready be to throw some balls, eat some pizza and shovel some cake.

The thought that no one might show scares me to death. It scares me because it will crush her. It scares me because I will pay for that bruising for who knows how long.

Praying that these girls and their parents make my girl’s day tomorrow simply by showing up.