Life Is Great. I Ought to Get One.

It was a bit of a stressful weekend. Not because we dealt with the passport Nazi while renewing my daughter’s passport at the local post office. Not because my husband and I viewed the film “Race to Nowhere” and got terrified about our daughter’s educational life after she leaves the nurturing and creative environment of BPOTP (best preschool on the planet). Not even because I found myself maneuvering through the Vienna Whole Foods parking lot and store on a Sunday. I actually handled that stuff fairly well, using an effective coping mechanism handed down to me by my mother. (Read: Booze. Lots and lots of booze.)

No, Peeps caused my weekend stress.

You read that right. The cheap, sugary, marshmallow treats are responsible for my weekend angst.

As many of you know, the Washington Post hosts a Peeps diorama contest around Easter time every year. And every year, the competition gets more intense.  To add to the pressure, the Post gave much less notice this year, which sent my Peeps co-conspirator, Hillary, and I into a bit of a planning and glue-gunning frenzy over the past week.

You see, this is our fourth year entering the contest. And in the past four years, our entries have been summarily dismissed by the team of judges, thanks to the impossibly intricate entries the Post receives from the D.C.-area overachievers. (And also because the Post judges do not seem to recognize true artistic genius.) <cough cough>

We rebound, though, because we’re a tough team, a team that agrees the first rule of Peeps diorama construction is that nothing interferes with Peeps diorama construction. Last year, Hillary had given birth to her second son and hosted a bris for a hundred people a few weeks prior to the diorama due date — all of which occurred in the midst of Snowmageddon. Yet, she still showed up to construct and photograph our submission to make sure we entered by the deadline.  

She’s totally the one I want in the Peeps foxhole with me.

She’s the kind of person who responds to the psychotic 5:30 a.m. text message "In a fit of inspiration/insanity, I began work on a Peeps Snoop Dogg this morning," about five minutes later with, “Excellent work.”

Don’t worry. We know we are ridiculous. During one of the (approximately 23,000) texts and phone calls we have exchanged, I was relaying information about the status and time line of the project, when I realized how serious my tone was and simply burst out laughing.

Although it was close, we did finish in time to submit our diorama by the deadline of midnight Monday. Now all we can do is wait and hope this is our year.

And if it’s not, we’ll again regroup and find a way to cope. Which will probably involve booze. Lots and lots of booze.