Something about adding the fourth child has thrown me for a loop… maybe it was the blood loss (another story another time), maybe it was the holidays so close to her birthday, or maybe it’s having four under the age of 10… whatever it is, I’ve got it. And I have yet to recover from it – it seems to have effected my ability to put together a timely, planned party for the child of the moment.

I threw a party at a place where a kid can be a kid for S together in a week. That means I booked it on a Wednesday, handed out invitations the next day, and had the party on Monday. All things considered, it went well. J’s birthday is 13 days after S… I was not up to getting a party together, and had heard eight is were less kids show up… too many other things going on. T had tix to a soccer game that day with a bunch of guys from work and got stuck in traffic. So for J it was me, his siblings and his aunt. I told him we would try to do one the next month… that never came together either. (Bad Mommy, I know.)

So last Saturday I said I have GOT to call about booking a party at the local bounce house place… and T got a wild hair… Let’s rent a couple bounce houses and have it out back. We have the big play area, we could set up wade pools… it would be FUN…

Monday I made some calls, and booked the bounce houses, set the time, ordered the cake, and sent out the emails. By Friday I was trying to find the right goody bags (Kung Fu Panda — I bought everyone I could find in Nashville), and trying to make sure I would have enough food. See this party at home for my now five-year-old turned into 42 people coming to my house.

About 30 minutes before the guest were to arrive today, I heard a noise. J did too… what was that? he asked… I hope it was Daddy I answered, knowing it was not… Then again… no not Daddy… that was thunder… I turned on the weather channel… yes, we were expecting thunder storms this after noon. UGH!

Just after people started arriving, it started pouring… Now, we had to turn our outside party to an inside party. T did a GREAT job of keeping kids entertained upstairs while it rained. Fortunately, it only rained about 30 minutes… then we dried things off, and everyone was back outside. Also fortunately, the rain scared some off, and we ended up with about half of the people I thought were coming.

The rest of the afternoon went well… until S couldn’t wait any longer for cake… right before Aunt GG cut it, she licked it (big brother J was acting like he would, and she had to try)… her piece was spoken for! Notice the little bit of frosting just below her lip…