Party Pooper

The week of birthdays is over. Not quite a week. 4 days. Wednesday was Ian's birthday and we went to Eureka Springs to ride the train and to see the Turpentine Creek Big Cats. It was SO hot! And expensive. I'm known to be...uh, to put it nicely, Thrifty (capital T). I had a hard time shelling out all those clams for our two attractions. The parts Ian liked the most was getting to put money on the railroad tracks and watching the engine 'smoosh' them. He also liked feeding time at Turpentine Creek. We got to watch the employees/zoologists throw raw chicken, etc through holes in the cages. There was some impressive roaring and growling. There were also some BIG tigers and lions. We didn't go on the guided tour because we have small children that would not have enjoyed it. Which equals out to "we wouldn't have enjoyed it" which also equals "no one would have enjoyed it." Has anyone else noticed how these things happen?

So we were in the car for a total of 4 hours and got very overheated. But Northwest Arkansas is beautiful.













Thursday was Erin's birthday. We chilled out at home and tried to recover from our excursion of the previous day. We made and consumed strawberry cupcakes. Mm. Erin got tired of opening presents so we saved the rest of them for the party (don't spaz out on me, she didn't get THAT many. She's 1; she wants ribbons and boxes).





Saturday was supposed to be a nice quiet day when Ian's friends (all 3 of them) would come over and play in our back yard. Then more people were invited and we almost didn't have enough food and one child (who will remain unnamed) informed me that my party punch was disgusting and wanted chocolate milk. I could have curdled said milk, but I toned down the Look quite a bit and sweetly (hey, I tried, it may not have been as sweet as I'd hoped) told the child that there was only punch available. The child drank it anyway, but did Not ask for more. The mother didn't like the punch either. The sibling loved it and drank about 4 glasses.



And then there were the pizzas. I made homemade garlic breadsticks and homemade cheese pizza for everyone and the kitchen was HOT! So I was all sweaty and gross in the kitchen, going out into the yard to serve everyone. The grownups were all clumped in a circle in one part of the yard talking, I'm sure, of Important Things. The children were running rampant like hoodlums, since they have a 6th sense that enables them to detect when the adults are not paying attention to them. Of course, one of those hoodlums was my child, the birthday boy. The birthday girl was napping inside. Fast forward a bit. Everyone was fed, caked, presents were presented and exclaimed over and everyone went outside to play some more. I was stuck with cleanup and a cranky baby.

Rewind a bit, I forgot something. Then there were the Worms. We had the slip'n'slide out and everyone knows that there is little more frustrating than an unslippery slip'n'slide. Where you run and plop and stick to the plastic? No fun. So HC (my Hot Cop) decided to dump a little--in this case, a lot-- of Palmolive and then shoot the kids down the slide. He then left the Sam's sized container of Palmolive in plain sight and rejoined the oblivious circle of adults. What do you think happened next? Any kid with a brain would've done it. In this case, there were 4 kids with active brains (the 5th one was too young to think such devious thoughts, he was only 3). They dumped about 30 oz of dish soap over a period of an hour. With the hose attached to the slide, it wasn't long before our yard started looking like a cheap car wash. And that's when the worms came up out of the ground. I came out to serve the breadsticks and saw the grass writhing. There were worms everywhere. They don't like soap in their underground kingdoms, so they come up to give their opinions to the world (and to find a place where they don't gag on soap fumes). We collected a lot and threw them into the garden, but there were just too many. Later that afternoon, I collected 6 off of the slip'n'slide alone. Eeek.

The 3 year old adopted one and played with him for about an hour. He'll have a great story to tell to the grand-worms.

Anyway, my kid was being a brat. He was being mean to the other kids, not sharing, not taking turns and getting in everyone's way. I got down to his level, spoke in a firm voice and gave him the ultimatum. Either he would listen or get time out. I could see (on his face!) the decision being made. He did something else that went beyond not listening. So I did it. He got frogmarched inside and put in the tub with his very grassy, grubby, wormy (she almost ATE one! Gag!), baby sister.

You could just tell. My little guy, newly 4, had been partying for over 4 hours and he was done. The baby was beyond done and just wanted her crib and some quiet. So what do you do when the party's over and NO ONE WILL LEAVE?!
(Update: I realize that I sounded frustrated here, because I WAS. I had done so much by myself and had gotten up too early after not getting enough sleep and I was frustrated with my own children as well as hot and sweaty. I hope it's understandable why I was aggravated. Apologies to anyone who attended the party who is reading this.)

You bathe your children, clean up as much as possible and put them down for a nap. Then you sit inside with a book and put your feet up until people get the picture. Aaaaaah!

And you know what? They did.