Porter's Spiderman Party

So we had Porter's birthday party today....so much learned in such a short period of time...where to begin....

So I had spent the week with a burst eardrum and hadn't done any cleaning or grooming of the yard, which turns out to be a good thing...Eva started throwing up last night...Dave assured me that it was just too many chips and not the flu so we didn't need to cancel the b-day party or notify the parents. I spent the rest of the night comforting Eva b/c her ears hurt. So didn't start this morning with a lot of sleep. The positive side is that I did start it with a lot of Vicaden in my system which made the day that much easier to bear.

Porter's b-day party was themed as "Spiderman". Lesson number 1 for the day is that themed b-day parties are expensive to host. This is b/c it is a slippery slope to get everything Spiderman when a generic item will do. Initially it was just going to be napkins and cups, but then the cake was so cool, and you HAVE to have the Spiderman balloons to put outside so everyone knows where to come, and spiderman wrapping paper is a must have if you're hosting, then you have to have gift bags for everyone who comes and those have to be spiderman as well....needless to say he had the COOLEST party EVER...I'm just not hunting up any receipts to figure out how much this ding dang party cost!

At 11:00 all the kids showed up on time. Now I still attend parties w/my kids when I've never met the family, but it seems that I am the only parent that does so. Everyone dropped off their kids and ran. Which left me and Dave with 15 kids ranging from the ages of 4 to 7 an infant (Ivy) and a little girl with earaches and possibly the flu (Eva). Good thing I had that Vicaden....perhaps one more would help maybe this time followed by a vodka chaser...?....

I figured the kids could jump on the tramp and then I filled up the wade pool on a whim. I don't know what I thought they were going to do in the wade pool....but for some stupid reason I didn't think they would all jump in it fully clothed. The little girls with their curled hair, cute outfits, and ribbons were soaked before their parents left the driveway. Hmmm....perhaps that Vicaden was inhibiting my thought process after all....nawhhhh....it was a brilliant idea. Serves those parents right for ditching their kids at the door and running off.

The rest of the party was spent playing on the tramp, yelling that it was too slippery, and swimming underwater in the wade pool. I did try to put together a party game, but the kids were less than impressed so I just grabbed a Diet Coke, sat back and made sure that no one fell of the tramp (which they didn't thank goodness) and that no one got held underwater in the wade pool for too long.

Instead of icecream I did Popsicles and the amazing spiderman cake that I got the kids ate two bites of and then threw away. Why do we even bother with cake anyway? I don't know that anyone really likes it. They LOVED the Popsicles though. The little spiderman goodies bags were a bigger hit than pretty much anything, so that made me happy. Who knew that a bouncy ball and a pencil sharpener could be such a hit?

In the end the kids had a BLAST....it really was the best birthday party ever and funny enough the kids weren't blown away by all the spiderman paraphernalia....I don't think they even noticed. I guess when you have a tramp and a wade pool spiderman looses some of his glamor.

Once we got home, we spent a good chunk of time running around the house trying Porter's new walkie-talkies and web slinger (glorified rubber-band flipper). He hasn't gotten around to getting pumped about any of the rest of his presents yet. We're letting him take his time.

Needless to say, regardless of how much Vicaden I pop, it's gonna take me a couple of days to recover from this two hour b-day party.

We wish you all could have made it to the party for no other reason than to mock me and laugh at me running around like crazy.