Kiddie Birthday Parties: Can we be real here?

I know, I know. Don't pee in the pool ya swim in. I'm taking a risk here, sharing my true feelings about children's birthday parties. My children are still quite young. They stand a fighting chance of getting invited to another birthday party in their lives. So why does their cranky mama have to go all Birthday Scrooge right now, on the internets? Well if any of our friends are reading this, nota bene: I am not talking about your party. I'm speaking globally about a few things that have been making me itch.

Thing the First about the Children's Birthday: Please don't make me RSVP by calling your phone number. Please make provision on the invitation for us awkward types to either send you a text message or respondez s'il vous plait by e-mail. Your child is in my kid's class. We have only met briefly, when I was trying to catch up on Suri Cruise's fashion forecast in the grocery aisle and you were trying to use a coupon and our kids were trying to introduce us, but c'mon. Suri Cruise. Coupons for Mr. Clean. Priorities.

Thing the Second: If your invitation includes a gift registry, I will totally comply but the whole time I will be thinking, "B-b-b-but, what will our children have to look forward to when they get married???" They will be all jaded and won't experience the thrill of saying, Do we go for the Lenox pie slicer or is OXO going to cut it (literally) for us? What the hay! Someone else is buying! Let's go top shelf! Scan!

[showmyads]

Thing the Third: If the venue of your child's birthday party involves any manner of inflatable jumping apparatus or fuzzy characters that walk around and throw tickets? I am totally sending my husband to chaperone. If I have to go, I might have to hide in the corner and bite my sleeve while whimpering something about how I almost drowned in the ball jump in McDonald's playland in 1984 and maybe that's what happened to Grimace and the Fry Burgler, too. Has anyone checked on them?

Thing the Fourth: If you invite the whole class as well as your neighborhood, extended family and the stepfather of the dog of your pilates instructor's mail carrier, you are just going to have to accept that your kid is going to cry at his/her own party. Maybe not even because he/she wants to. Because that crowd would overwhelm a politician.

Thing the Fifth: It is always helpful when invitations state whether food will be served at the party. For example, if you will be serving gummi worms, cupcakes, doughnuts, ice cream, and Girl Scout cookies with a Yoohoo chaser, followed by a pinata full of Jolly Ranchers and a send-off with the s'mores and choco-dipped goodie bags, I just like to know so I can be prepared for the diabetic coma into which my children will slip later that night. Know before you go, and all that.

I guess that about covers it. I know these are all First World requests and that every birthday celebration is a sweet one, marking the passing of another year of the life of a child who is healthy enough to celebrate.

Healthy enough to celebrate and eat a Ring Pop and open lotsa gifts.

Just be careful if you go near that ball jump, kids.

***

Hanging out in the deep end

Like most stories, I realized this was an actual story when replaying the events of a day to Loverpants at 1:30 a.m. as we tried to muffle our laughter in an effort to not to wake up the kids. So last week I invited several mama friends to come to the downtown pool with us. Which means that I went solo to the downtown pool because my mama friends have their kids in Organized Programming, whereas mine are involved in Netflix. We do love the downtown pool but it is a lot of work to schlepp downtown with all the pool gear. Oy to the vey.

The upside of going solo is that if my kids are acting the fool, I'm an audience of one and the rest of the folks at the downtown pool are strangers.

The downside of going solo is if I need to change my tampon. Then I have an audience of two in a bathroom stall that smells like chlorine and fungus and the floor is wet with fluids of unimaginable combinations.

This story is not about tampons, however. Sorry for those we've already lost.

[showmyads]

This story is about the deep end at the downtown pool. In the deep end are two very impressive inflatable structures that float on the water. The first structure is a truly impressive jungle gym. It reminds me a bit of the obstacle course from the Nickelodeon game show Double Dare that was popular in the late '80s. Remember the whipped cream pit at the end of the slide? What's that? You weren't even alive in the '80s? Kay. Bye.

Anyway, the jungle gym requires that swimmers be of a certain height. Baby Girl measured herself last week and she was shy of the mark by a good three inches. This week, however, she was determined that she had grown. We did back to the wall and it appears the growth spurt was less than astronomical because she still appeared to be 3 inches shy of the mark.

"But, Mama, maybe just check to see if Little Man is tall enough. Because Daddy said his head is bigger than mine."

After measuring Little Man, it appears that his remarkable noggin did not, in fact, clear him for the jungle gym eligibility after all.

The second structure on the water is a giant inflatable pyramid. One one side, stairs. On the other, a slide. Boss, right?

I asked the kids if they wanted to see their mama climb the pyramid and slide down the slide. They flipped for the idea. As we passed the lifeguard, who looked EXACTLY like Spicoli, leans off his chair and looks at me and says, "You know they can go on this one."

Which to me means, your kids can go scale this pyramid thing even though they can barely find their own mouths with a fork somedays.

So I said, Okay, thanks!

And then I had my kids stand next to Spicoli's chair while I waited in line for my rightful turn to scale the pyramid.

Just as I am about to get my turn to dive into the water, Spicoli dismounts his chair and a new lifeguard takes over. So now both lifeguards are looking at me and I dive in.

But somewhere between the moment my feet leave the edge of the pool and when my head comes up in the water for air, both lifeguards are yelling NOOOOWAAAAYYWHAAARRRYOUUUDOOOWAAIATWEEESAIIDWHAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

I still have no idea what they're saying so I tread water in the deep end and look puzzled, while my kids look on from the sides thinking, Wow. Is Mom kind of a loser right now, or?

Finally the new lifeguard says, "Ma'am, have you taken the swim test?"

Hmm. Swim test. I have to think for a moment. Let's see. Ohio driver's license test. Check. SAT. LSAT. GRE. Check, check, check. Exam to sell life insurance in Massachusetts. Exam to broker stocks in United States. Pregnancy Test. All those? Check check check.

But the swim test at the downtown pool? No! Hahah! Imagine? Somehow I missed that! Here I am in my twirties, fully capable of swimming the front crawl against heavy ocean waves and aren't I conceited to think that I didn't have to take a test for the deep end of a municipal pool.

At this point, the new lifeguard says, "Sorry, if you want to hang out in the deep end without a life jacket, you've got to go see the lifeguard standing by the kiddie pool and she'll get you all tested."

Hang out in the deep end? OH YEAH! That is my jam! I am totally wanting to hang out here in the deep end like an ant at a picnic. Oh, but thing is, see, I have these children with me, the ones standing next to you in life jackets? And all they wanted to do was see their mom slide down this water slide and cheer for joy.

But instead, I am swimming with my tail between my legs to go meet my kids.

Spicoli, ever the comforter, leans over and says, "Sorry, Ma'am, I thought you were just standing in line with your kid. Haha."

So I told him to go back to eating his pizza and learning about Cuba.

Not really.

But I was so huffy about not getting to slide down the pyramid that I didn't even take the swim test.

Proving to my children that some of us are just too cool for safety.

So cool, in fact, that we end up spending the rest of the day in the kiddie pool. So there! Take that!

Do you cook Korean for your husband?

This is not my favorite question, the question of whether or not I cook Korean cuisine for my husband. After we were married, it was the #1 question asked of me as a new bridey mchousewife. No ethnicity, sex, gender, age was exempt among the askers of this particular interrogative. Do you cook Korean for your husband, asked the well-meaning people who were probably sincerely interested to know how my backyard burial of the fermented cabbage was going. Seriously, though. Oh. My. Kimchee. Did that question get old.

For starters, the obvious. Much as my beautiful black hair and almond shaped eyes and ivory skin betray me--you know I'm not the Korean one in this equation, right? Why would you not ask Loverpants if he cooks Korean for his Irish-Italian wife?

For seconds, really? That's what you ask a woman in the year 2000 and something? What kind of a short order cook for her man is she? I mean, women can vote and earn a PhD and buy stock but the first question out of the gate is what she's got on the stovetop these days?

For thirds, what if I --perish the thought--DON'T cook Korean food for Loverpants. What if I chef up every manner of Asian delicacy but Korean is just not in the repertoire OH SWEET MOTHER WHAT THEN!?!

Of course, the above responses were not seasoned with salt. Nary would they pass through my lips. Lord, have mercy on Thy servant and her fallen thoughts.

Still. Couldn't help but get annoyed from time to time....

*** Last night I stood in front of the stovetop stirring quinoa, excited to put it and some veggie medley into egg roll wraps and fry them up real nice and Korean mama like.

The plate was piled high with my clumsily filled egg roll invention.

I started to fry and samples one and two were perfect! Brought all the kids to the yard.

And then after the third one, they all started to unravel. Droplets of fry grease spattered the air and my arms and OW WHAHHH WHYYYYYY??

I asked my Korean mister where was the fault line in my egg roll construction?

He said, graciously, it was possibly the fact that I had stuffed my egg rolls like they were burritos. Or cannoli. Might be why they are busting at the seams.

So, not willing to pay my full penance for Not Cooking Korean for My Husband all these years, I did what every good ethnically Western European gal would do.

I took that quinoa egg roll smattering, threw it in a pyrex dish, topped it with swiss cheese, baked it at 375 for an hour and made quinoa egg roll lasagna casserole thing.

And it was good. Even my Korean husband said so.