Birthday marathon

Forget those marathons where you run. If you want to find those with REAL fortitude. Try marathon kid birthday parties.

Somehow this was THE weekend for kid birthdays. We were invited to 3. We made it to two. And it is certainly in contention for one of the longest days of my life.

We started just before lunch at 5 year old twin birthdays. The theme was pirates and aliens and the kids were too busy having fun to be bothered with eating. I tried crammed pizza into them, but not much. And then they filled themselves with pinata candy and cake and ice cream.

The highlight was the party favors- foam light sabers that make noise and light up.
The kids spent close to an hour banging each other with these light sabers towards the end of the party. The boys were opening their presents in the middle of a scene from the outtakes in Star Wars. Some of the kids were doing Jedi-Knight ninja moves and the little kids were collateral damage.

Joey of course thought it was AWESOME.

So into the car we go with 2 broken lightsabers and head to the second birthday party.

This was for a 6 year old girl and Sonia's "best friend" so you know we had to go. The theme there was candy. Pure candy with a little disney princess mixed in there.
There was a "candy bar" aka a table with jars of candy which the kids could help themselves. They were welcomed with cotton candy and a popcorn machine, too.

By the time hotdogs and hamburgers were cooked none of the kids had any appetite for them. None. There were also nachos which the kids also passed up for candy. Of course, right?

THIS party had a DJ there playing music, karaoke and some unique games. Joey of course is MR. Competitive and won every single game. The birthday girl was in tears when she was the first one "out" in nearly all the games. And Sonia decided she'd had enough loosing at competition and decided to sit out most of the games after she won (with Joey and another kid) at simon says.

And the party went on f-o-r-e-v-e-r. 4 hours into the party they brought out the pinata. And not like the pinatas you typically find, this one was a special order from Mexico and about the size of Rhode Island. Seriously. They put 25 lbs of candy into it and it still had room in it. There were only about 25 kids there. This in addition to the candy bar the kids had been visiting throughout the afternoon.

So.. What I've learned from both pinatas is.. the ones from Mexico are not made from paper mache anymore. Nope. Cardboard. Taped shut and then decorated.
Cardboard is far more durable than paper mache. I don't care how many layers of paper mache you put in there, it will never be as durable as the double walled corrugated cardboard. Both those pinata made it through the starting line up more than 1 time. Pinata #1 was then re-taped shut and re-filled for the second inning. The kids were too busy picking up the candy from Pinata #2 for the better part of 20 minutes that they weren't terribly interested in a second inning.

So.. after 5 hours at the second party my kids were higher than a kite. They each had a lunch bag filled with candy to the point where the paper was ripping. And everytime I looked they were helping themselves to it. John Michael devoured 5 lollipops in the time it took me to take Sonia to the bathroom. He started looking green around the gills but screamed like I was killing him when I confiscated his bag.

So.. after today, the kids had eaten little food that qualified as anything remotely food-like were somewhere in orbit around Venus from the sugar and toward the end, the birthday girl asks if Sonia can spend the night. And her mom confirms that indeed there are 5 other girls spending the night.

Well, now... you sugar up my kid that does.not.sleep. and you want to keep her overnight???
well.. ok. If you insist. I'll be right back with her PJ's and sleeping bag.

Of course the other 3 were off the walls as we left and I felt kinda bad that Kayla wanted to stay but I didn't think it was a good idea with her sleep walking tendencies. And the fact that she was oh.so.tired and a tired Kayla is a very whiny monster.

So.. mommy guilt added with the fact that they had eaten barely anything that qualified as food despite my efforts.. we stopped at Mc Donalds on the way home. They had a play scape and the kids were willing to leave the party without throwing a fit if I'd take them there. Scary to think that today Mc Donalds was nutrition in comparison to the rest of the day.

Well.. we closed the place down and at 9 we were told that they were closed.
And now it's 10pm. We've been home for an hour and the house is finally quiet. And I'm chuckling to myself thinking that I don't have to send Sonia back to bed some 500 times.

But on a funny side note- The first party my kids looked just like the other kids. The second party they were the only white kids. They didn't notice it at all as far as I could tell. I, however, thought it was funny. Mostly because I wonder how hard you had to work to get that ratio.. because we have met so few African American kids here. And I think they were all at the party - with a few Hispanic kids and a Chinese boy mixed in to round out the races.

So I kinda hope that Sonia will get some hair care tips from the other girls with hair less manageable than hers. But if not, I'm happy thinking that *I* will get to sleep at a somewhat reasonable hour and her host family will be the ones up anyway with 7 very hyper 6 year old girls.

chuckling myself to sleep at the thought..