It’s not a party till someone throws up. But who would it be? Would it be me who ate copious amounts of raw cake batter for breakfast? Adam who consumed his body weight in pork? The friends who made six pitchers of white sangria, a plate of Jell-O shots, a case and a half of beer, the gin and tonics, and I-don’t-know-how-many bottles of wine magically disappear?
The day started with the annual neighborhood 4th of July bike parade. The day was hot. But the kids didn’t mind and the boy rode around a few extra times, despite the heat.
After the parade, parents bring snacks to share. On holidays like this, I try not to notice what the kids eat, but sometimes it’s hard not to notice. The girl had some cookies and a bunch of watermelon. The boy had cookies. And one of those tubes of frozen sugar water. And some more cookies. I wanted to eat the cookies. But that morning I had made Rice Krispie treats (oops, that one fell on the floor! I better eat that one), a three-layer cake (which fell apart before I could serve it, which meant the only thing to do was for me to shove handfuls of it into my mouth), and the aforementioned sangria (which required frequent tastings to insure the right balance of wine, Cointreau, sugar, and fruit). Adam was too busy licking the BBQ sauce from his face to even be concerned with the snacks.
After the parade, we headed home to set up for the party and to listen to our kids say on average 3.74 times per minutes, “When does the party start? When does the party start?” The party started at 3, thank you. Luckily the in-laws agreed to arrive an hour early to keep the “When does the party start”ers out of our hair.
The party itself was great. People mingled. All of the ribs were eaten. All of the sangria was drunk. Thanks to our guests, we had enough desserts to keep the kids on a sugar high for the rest of the month. The kids disappeared. For a while, they were playing a game called Prisoner, which involved locking kids in the shed under the stairs. And you know what? Not a single parent minded. The girls under the age of 7 all disappeared into Pie’s room within minutes of arriving. We heard shrieks. Loud shrieks. Rather ear-piercing, but as it was the Fourth of July, the more noise the better. At one point we turned the sprinklers on for the kids in the backyard, while the parents drank in the front yard.
Little people would run in and out, and hands would grab things from the front table and disappear. As I saw my son take his umpteenth Pop Rocks cookie, I yelled, “Have you had any energy food today?” He did a U-turn without even looking at me, grabbed a plain hot dog in one hand (the other held cookies), and shoved it his mouth as he continued running to the back yard. Dinner accomplished.
About 30 minutes later, I’m sitting in the front yard, contemplating whether I should have any energy food. Despite the large plate of veggies and fruit, all I’ve had is the aforementioned sweets and an awful lot of chips and (homemade) onion dip. Oh, and beer. And sangria.
The girls come squealing by. The boy runs up to the front porch. He approaches the food table, but looks momentarily confused. He turns around, on the front porch, not 6 inches from the garbage can, and proceeds to vomit up every bit of sugar he’s had that day. Right there. In full view of everyone.
And what do I do? I sit in my chair and laugh. And call for Adam. Because on the list of “I don’t do,” in addition to laundry, is basically anything having to do with bodily functions. Adam comes and cleans. The boy has the nerve to turn around and look back at the desserts.
“I don’t think so!” I yell. “Go inside and brush your teeth!”
“Why?” he had the nerve to ask.
“Because you threw up!”
He shrugged, went inside to brush, and then went right back to playing. Could not have cared less. I asked him later why he didn’t run into the bathroom or, at the very least, move a couple of inches over to the garbage can. “I dunno,” he said.
And he recovered enough that we all headed over to the school playground so he and Adam could shoot off his own model rocket, our little tribute to the Fourth of July as Boston fireworks don’t start till freakin’ 10:30 p.m. and we have not, not one single year, managed to have the kids stay up late enough for it.
So, while we’re a little belated, happy birthday, America! We celebrated in style!
Sounds like an awesome time was had by all :o)