We went to a "Jump and Bounce" birthday party today. It was hellish, if you want the truth, in that wonderful, chaotic, breathless way that a only a warehouse full of two-year-olds, beach balls, bouncy castles, cake and juice can attain.
On the bright side, I only had to haul my pregnant ass into my greatest nemesis - the obstacle course bouncy thingy - and fish one of my screaming children out of it twice. New bouncy party record!
Gee has become completely obstacle course self-sufficient. It's a huge milestone. On previous visits, he has won the title: "Most Likely to Be Eaten by the Obstacle Course and Disappear Forever." At thirty-four weeks pregnant with Cue, I had to climb into that damn obstacle course and rescue my two then two-year-olds about eleventy-billion times. That's the official tally. Because each time counts as at least eleventy-million when you are round and about the size of the stupid, pregnant-woman-eating obstacle course entry hole.
In other amazing news, Cue was able to climb the slide ladder BY HIMSELF. Praise the God of Jumpy Thingys. I can not properly put into words how tiring it is to haul a toddler up that slide ladder. It's a big honking balloon. It gives when you step on it. Well, it gives when I step on it. There is absolutely no limit to the amount of times a toddler can climb the ladder and slide down that slide. Infinity-bazillion times would not suffice. We get to the bottom and he's already signing more like a demented seal, as fast as his little flipper paws can sign.
Do you know the sign for more? If you have/know toddlers or you have ever had the misfortune to attend a toddler birthday party, I bet you do. Tuck your thumbs into your palms, face your thumbs to your belly and then bang your finger tips together as hard and as fast as you possibly can. Enthusiastically. With great emotion.
Feels kind of good actually, doesn't it? MORE BALLS! MORE SLIDE! MORE CAKE! MORE JUICE! MORE BALLOONS! It's hard to resist that kind of exuberant request. Maybe Matt should try it some time. Aha. Ahem.
All hellishly good things must come to an end, or at least that's what their caffeine-deprived mother told them. We bailed with Cue screaming inconsolably because I had the audacity to tie his third and final helium-filled balloon to his belt loop so that it would not join his first two balloons on the warehouse ceiling. His seal brain failed to comprehend that I could not retrieve it there no matter how many times or how hard he banged his little fingers tips together. Mommy magic has limits, baby boy.
Ess and Gee tried their hardest to cause a wreck on the way home by maximizing their annoyingness with helium balloons. It's a huge talent to hit each other with helium balloons while strapped into five-point harnesses in different rows of a large minivan. They can't put on their own shoes, but they can aim and whack backwards at four feet separation. Cue alternatively hugged his properly-secured helium balloon in fierce, loving exhaustion and howled in outrage when it slipped from his grasp and floated to the van ceiling.
I was sweaty and thirsty and tired and my head hurt from the noise (oh, the noise) and I was a little bit concerned about the IQ of my baby because, for the love of god, pull the freaking string which is conveniently tied to your car seat and the balloon will magically descend. A well-trained seal could figure this out.
But, I felt joyful. And lucky. Luck laced with such fragility that some days I'm afraid to touch it for fear it will shatter and other days I hold on to the string with both hands for fear it will float away.
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I think most of you know what a huge joy in a little package left this world on April 7, 2009. If you have a little joy in your heart to spare today, and you haven't already, we can help. Heather and Mike are struggling to meet the expenses of the service celebrating Maddie's life. All of the links are at the top of my sidebar. Over three-hundred posts say it far better than I ever could.
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53 comments:
How much fun is that? The kids in my infant room where I teach preschool sign More all daaay looong. Glad to hear your preggo self is still hoppin :)
You have much more courage than I ever had when pregnant, and when not...
I just got a migraine by proxy! But I know none of us would trade that joy for anything.
I refer to those as birthday parties in hell. I've nixed the requests from my girls to have their parties there.
But I am considering buying a home-sized bouncy house for The Boy, who LOVES.TO.JUMP.
What a great party. You should write a book - you crack me up CONSTANTLY! I would buy it. :)
I heard about that sweet little girl on another blog. We are thinking of her parents today.
I would like a rule for the bouncy balls like at the city pool. Safety break every 30 minutes??? Let a whistle be blown. This way none of us have to dive in the balls. Seriously!!! I will run for office on this platform.
I've been looking for one of these places to take my kids.....now I'm not sure that is such a good idea. LOL!
Isn't it crazy how birthday parties have grown into this mayhem?
I love these photos - and I can only imagine how grateful you are not to have to haul a toddler out from the recesses of the play structure. That takes outrageous amounts of energy - even when you're not pregnant.
I also love the photo of Ess, Gee and Cue. Those kids are truly adorable!
That sounds wonderful...for you. :-) Hellish indeed. Still, no one's complaining, this week of all weeks, especially. Everything looks and feels a little different, doesn't it? I hope I can hang on to that...not so much the sadness, but the realization of how lucky we are indeed.
i think the picture of the three of them giggling is the best picture ever. joy. pure joy.
a post overshadowed by thankfulness. for every crazy second that we have.
That last picture sums it all up, they look like they had a blast.
I've climbed that stupid slide ladder with a 35lb toddler more times than I'd like. He finally learned to climb it himself and it was a great moment.
Oh we just went to one of those parties recently... Sounds like a very similar experience: independant three year old and two year old twins who need constant rescuing. But at least I'm not hugely pregnant! You are supermom.
Just looking at their pics makes me feel like jumping in a big bouncy thing!! So much fun to be had in a warehouse resembling hell on Earth.
Heather and Mike are in my thoughts today. As I sit here and rub the spot where my 4th beautiful child is growing, I only hope he or she has as much love and purity in their precious eyes as Maddie had in hers. May their memories and love bring them some peace in their darkest hours. I will kiss my 3 girls and rub my belly one extra time tonight. All in honor of sweet little Maddie. My heart breaks for them.
Hon you deserve a medal for surviving that. I had to rescue Bunny from an obstacle course thing the other day and thought I was going to die.
"Mommy magic". I used that term in relation to magically cleaning a certain prized "blankie" (of which I had two, but I certainly wasn't going to tell HER that - then she'd want both and it would be hell if I had to wash both of them with nothing left behind for her). So anyway, one day she was complaining that I wasn't making her PB&J fast enough and told her that I was making it as fast as I could, I can't do magic. She promptly threw it in my face that "Yeah! You can do blankie magic!" So I had to clarify to her that blankie magic was the only magic I knew.
Glad you survived the bounce house party. They are exactly as you describe, and I found them exhausting NOT being very pregnant.
Ooohh, it looks like a great day! Balloons are seriously not my friends - my girls end up fighting over them, popping them, or letting them into the sky and then SCREAMING that they lost them.
Thanks for making me laugh today - I really needed it!
Oh, the noise, indeed. Just wait until your kids are all in the 6-12 age range. You might not believe me now, but you'll be able to sit in a chair and talk to a friend. The whole time. Honest to god.
But it will still be noisy. ;-)
It seems that the heartbreak of this week has made joy so much easier to see. I didn't know the Spohrs, and had only read her blog a few times, but my heart aches for them, so much.
What a fun post- I love the pics of your little ones - Yeah - I am glad you did not have to crawl through the course more that a million times.
So sorry to hear about Maddie- what a heartbreak.
More was Little Bit's first sign. What *was* I thinking when I taught it to her???
Great post. Reminds me why I hate those places. I agree with Hit 40 - 30 minute rule!
Cheers, Kiy
We're having Gremlin's birthday party at one in a few weeks! Yay!
I know exactly the joy of which you speak in NOT having to haul a two-year-old up the ladder. Our obstacle course has these two squeeze rollers (like an old-fashioned washing machine) that you have to squeeze your own fat ass through, then haul your child through by the hands, hoping not to dislocate an important joint.
LOL I adore your description of the big bouncy thing eating you up. I can almost see it.
Hope you don't mind if I follow along for a while :)
Isn't it fabulous when they can climb it alone?!? So happy for you on that one. Also, the bedtimes are very easy after a bouncy party!
You made me laugh outloud twice! Funny s**t.
The only thing worse is Chuck E. Cheese. Truly.
I rescued the Tongginator from a Chic-Fil-A climber once. I almost got stuck. And I wasn't pregnant. That was the beginning of my quest to contemplate diet and exercise.
oh my goodness you brought me right back to being pregnant and on one of those darn bouncy obstacle courses, pure hell. Glad it's over for you!
I love those photos! And I feel your pain. I've had to retrieve and help children in those bouncy house things a few times, but as I was very pregnant with #2 during playground season with #1, I spent a LOT of time trying to wedge myself through those crawly tunnel newfangled play-structure bonanzas after my then-two-year-old -- who could easily get in but not so easily get out. I wouldn't have it any other way, though, especially in light of the recent tragic news that makes clear what "other way" could horribly mean.
I took my five-year-old granddaughter to the local children's museum on Friday (Good Friday - huge mistake -- the place was crawling with kids). She wasn't tall enough for the climbing tower without an adult, so here is my 55-year-old carcass, hauling it up the rope net to the second floor. I pull myself onto the platform just in time to see her disappear into the spiral tube-slide and scramble after her, but by the time I reach the bottom (and I believe my knees and elbows were the last to arrive) she had disappeared. This happened, using base-Stacy for counting, eleventy-bazillion times, each with it's own little myocardial infarction.
We had a great time.
hahahaaa.... his seal brain.
love the pics.
i just accidentally enlarged the first pic. i LOVE it! i love the look on his face. flying through the air with the greatest of eeeeease.
love the socks.
That's great. Glad the kids had a good time. And glad you didn't have to climb the ladder with child in tow. I've been debating whether to teach Tyler sign language or not.
What fun in those photos! Though I don't envy the obstacle course challenges as a pregnant mama...
Sure is a lot of joy on those darling faces.... :)
xx
I love your last paragraph about being joyful and lucky. I've felt like that all week. I feel like that a lot, but especially this week.
Thank God those days are past me. Now, I just do nothing and just stick around to basically give her a ride home and eat all the candy out of her goody bag
"...and he's already signing more like a demented seal, as fast as his little flipper paws can sign."
Did you compare your child to a seal? Multiple times? Yeah, I thought so. Cracked. My. Ass. Up.
Also, did you notice that the 3rd photo of Cue kind of has him posing like a seal? I'm trained to notice these things.
oh, those places... uhg.
That is a party from hell that I would avoid at all costs, but would end up attending and be miserable. I love my kids. I'm not sure about everyone elses. Oh, and the noise. The NOISE! Eeek! So glad you survived, and you didn't have to climb the ladder.
Those places are brilliant!!! LOUD, but brilliant.........
xoxox
I had forgotten how annoying the balloons were when my kids were little. Now I miss that stage. Great post! I love your combination of humor and insight.
We all do need a little joy now and then.
Toddler birthday parties really are something entirely unique. Such a mix of the fantastic and terrible all at once.
Ahhh... Pump It Up. I finally started counting. We've officially been to 23 parties there. And Mister Man decided in December that he wants HIS party there this year. *sigh*
And Mister Man with a broken arm going through the obstacle course? Ohhhh that was not fun. Not fun at all. My delicate flower.
Well said.
I have such a love hate with helium balloons, but, the joy - never ceases to amaze me.
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HAHAHA, you are on fire in this post. I was laughing so many times. ANd yes, I sheepishly admit, a few of them may have been picturing the pregnant lady getting swallowed up in the obstacle course! Priceless.
The look on his face is pure glee. What fun! You are a great mom.
Video of you traversing the bouncy mountain would be a treat!
;)
I have a love hate relationship with birthday parties. And yes, the noise. That's what makes me crazy.
We love those parties... the joy on those sweet faces are so sweet. I wish I had their courage.
Oh I HATE bounce parties...I avoid them like the plague. My kids always come home hurt and obnoxiously crabby and tired! I am very impressed you went to one of those with three little ones!!!!
I just took BG to a jumpy place thing a couple weeks ago. She had a blast...I needed a nap.
*Your above video was beautiful.
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