Happy Happy

We are elbow deep in the cleanup from the second annual combined birthday party celebrating all six of the Myrick/Barlow boys who celebrate birthdays this month, or thereabouts (Larry, Barron, Lincoln, Nico, Sam and Barry). It was great fun, although the bounce house guy was two hours late and was duly sent away when he FINALLY arrived. Luckily, none of the kids seemed to notice, between the fort and ball pit and cake and ice cream. It was perfect weather, just a hint of fall, sunny and mild, and it was just lovely rolling around in the yard with a gang of over-excited kids. There's something very endearing about a circle of two to five-year olds around a cake waiting for the oh so slow parents to burn their fingerprints off lighting an obscene number of candles (the dangerous sparkler candles no less), gathered like a bunch of round cheeked vultures salivating over the eminent sugar feeding frenzy. Pigtails swing, toddlers chatter, older kids battle for ground on the cake table with subtly aggressive elbows. It's family like I remember from the movies, like I caught glimpses of in those old pictures when mom made Big Bird cakes and stood behind us while we blew out our candles, looking happy and tired and always glancing off in the distance at some other thing that needed to get done as soon as the cake part was over. I understand that expression now, because it is so rewarding to put on a party for these little people, rewarding and sweet and exhausting and frustrating. You feel like you never pull it off quite as well as your folks did (you should see the world's ugliest birthday cake that I made), but you feel good for what you put together when you see your kids laughing, hugging people, rubbing frosting on their cheeks, and collapsing in a tired heap at the end of it all. A lot of work, but totally worth it.