Party Down

Yesterday Big Kid had a birthday party to attend. As he was getting ready to go, he started getting really upset that his little brother wasn't invited.

"Don't say anything about this to the mom or the birthday boy, okay? He will go to parties you won't be invited to. This is not an insult or a big deal, it happens when you're brothers. He isn't even upset about it."

When I arrived at the party to pick him up, he had made an extra craft, collected an extra bag of pinata candy and had carefully written his brother's name on a spare tattoo. He swears he didn't say anything to the mom, who mentioned how he really loved his brother.

As we were walking through the party with the mom, saying our goodbyes, I said, "The activities you guys did were really adorable."

Big Kid said, "Mom! Did you really just say that?" He quickly glanced at the other mom before looking back at me in disgust. "Why would you say that?"

"That the activities were adorable? Because everything is set up so cute?"

He looked relieved. "I thought you said 'horrible'. I was really wonderin' what your problem was. It would've been the worst thing you've ever said ever, for sure--at a kid's party, callin' it horrible."

I laughed nervously and loudly said, "ADORABLE! Everything is adorable, certainly not HORRIBLE," for fear the mother had misheard me too.

He then went on and on about how much the cupcakes sucked:

"See how I ate the frosting but not the brown part? That's because the brown part was no good."

"Oh, well, you don't really like cupcakes so, yeah, but you liked the frosting so that's--"

"I love cupcakes, mom. You know I love cupcakes. I just didn't like these cupcakes."

Ha ha. Thanks, Big Kid, for thwarting my attempt to rescue us from this awkward moment.

At an earlier play date with this same family, he informed the mother that he didn't eat his macaroni and cheese because it wasn't as good as his mother's, and that she should ask me how I make it.

So, at least she was already familiar with the Ashley family brand of charm.

Facebook Frienemies

Can we talk about the weirdness of Facebook for a moment?

Some of you may remember that I was resistant to the idea of Facebook and initially felt like I was at a party with everyone I'd ever met in one room and was really uneasy about all of these different walks of life coming together in one central location.

But then I discovered the joys of being able to watch the mid-life crises of high school friends and the receding hairlines of former boyfriends and the long, drawn-out, public warfare of relationships ending in front of 400 of the couple's closest friends and family members.

And I like seeing pictures of everyone's new babies.

So, I adapted and began enjoying it. It's also a very easy way for me to keep in touch and keep family updated, two things I really suck at doing. It has also definitely strengthened some friendships and brought good people back into my life.

But I do not have 400 Facebook friends. I do not want 400 Facebook friends. My rule for friending someone is, "If I saw this person at the mall, would I stop to talk or duck into the nearest store and hide?" Occasionally, there's an in-between ground where perhaps we'd both nod and smile as we walked by and I'll take those people, too.

But what the hell is with strangers, people I completely cannot remember at all, or blatant wannabe stalker requests? I get an alarming number of these.

I've got about 6 people in the holding pen right now who I feel guilty pushing "reject" on, but can't figure out why on earth they want to be my friend in the first place.

Facebook is bringing a whole new level of social awkwardness into my life.

Tangerine

Twice today I chased our little orange tabby cat, Tangerine, around our neighbor's yard. Both times I saw her as I was leaving and although she isn't supposed to be out, I thought she had possibly squeezed through the screen door and escaped. Both times I absolutely had to be on time to where I was going and knew I would be back soon. I will confess that I completely forgot that I had seen her the first time, so when I saw her the second time, I was really irritated at her and myself, and was aggressive in my attempts to retrieve her.

Finally, I caught her! And then I realized that it wasn't Tangerine after all.

So yeah, my neighbors are probably wondering why the hell I'm harassing their cat, because they don't know that we have nearly identical kitties.

Loyal readers will remember the time that I found Tangerine dead on the side of the road on my way to a school function for Big Kid. I was devastated, sick with worry and grief throughout the function, stopped and studied the dead, one-eyed body on the way home and was disgusted with myself for not wanting to pick her up and put her in my car. (I was going to make Mr. Ashley go get her. I don't ever touch dead things.)

Then I pulled up at home to find Tangerine waiting on the door step. Very much alive, with both eyes intact.

So it's a good thing I didn't have the stomach to put that dead cat in my car.

I guess this is what I get for owning such generic-looking cats.

Busch Gardens: the Weird and the Wonderful

We had an amazing time at Busch Gardens this weekend; the kind of time that makes you wish your kids could stay small forever.

(Until the drive home, when you begin estimating the number of days until the youngest's 18th birthday and begin to brainstorm feasible reasons to leave the country at that time.)

At 3 and 6 (4 and 7 in August), they are at that magical stage where everything is an adventure and they are pretty easy to hang out with. Mr. Ashley and I looked at each other in wonder as we passed the sweaty parents pushing strollers in crowded areas and carrying dangly-legged newborns in Baby Bjorns in 90 degree heat, and wanted to high five at that finally not being us. Don't get me wrong, we loved it when it was us but holy heck is it easier to get around these days.

Busch Gardens is awesome in itself and I may even like it more than Disney. The mix of animals, rides and places to hang out is nice. The animal enclosures are beautiful, compassionate and designed to bring the animals close to you. In the Gorilla enclosure, we watched a mommy gorilla lean against the glass window we were behind and nurse her baby as the daddy lounged in the grass with his hands behind his head and observed us back. As we were climbing some net play enclosure thing, we found ourselves just a few feet from big hanging bats in the adjacent netted enclosure. The rides were fun, there were splash pads and water play areas all around the park, and unlike Disney, they serve beer, if you're into that type of thing. (I am.)

They also opened a new Sesame Street play area which was incredible. I wanted to push kids aside and run across the gigantic bouncy floor area and splash in the water area and run through the net tunnels like they got to. But I didn't, because security was present.

Unfortunately, the Sesame Street 4D movie gave Big Kid a mild form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In 4 different scenes, water shoots out from the seat in front of you as something water-related happens in the movie. I'll admit that it was irritating--the number of times was excessive and if you were short, you were more likely to get hit in the face. It was also early in the day and we weren't hot yet, so sitting in the blasting air conditioning in damp clothing wasn't fun but it was no big deal. Except to Big Kid.

He was super mad about it and felt like Sesame Street had done something mean to him on purpose; he couldn't figure out why they would think kids might like getting a surprise squirt of water to the face and over the course of the day he kept bringing it up and getting angrier each time. We finally just had to tell him that he had to try to move past it and that we didn't want to hear about it anymore.

But moving on from it just wasn't possible for him, so he would just try to frame it differently: "Mom, what was your favorite part of the 4D movie?"

"I don't know. The underwater scene with the bubbles?"

"Hmm. I'm thinkin' Cookie Monster because there was a giant spaceship cookie, and that was the monster instead of Cookie Monster, and there was no squirtin' water." Then he'd look at me quickly out of the corner of his eye to see if I had caught on to the fact that he was still obsessing over the water.

It went on all day Sunday. He mentioned it again Monday morning (by bringing up his favorite scene and its non-liquid merits) as soon as he woke up . On Tuesday, I saw that he wrote this in his class teddy bear's travel journal:

It says, “On Sunday we were still at Bucsh Garden's. We watched the elmo 4D movie. I did not like geting wet.”

Since we hadn't really taken the class bear into Busch Gardens, we had previously decided that the journal entry would be about the car ride and playing in the hotel but I guess he was still working through the trauma and needed to record it for posterity. Which I'm kind of glad about, because it's pretty funny.

And if you can't laugh at childhood trauma, what can you laugh at?

Way to go, Elmo.

Brudders

As long as no one is skipping anyone in Uno, they really, truly love each other.

Not Funny

It was joke day at Big Kid's school yesterday and he was reviewing his material over breakfast, trying to find the perfect joke to share.

"Do you got any jokes, mom?"

"Hmmmmm, not really. What's black and white and red all over?"

"I don't know, what?"

"A penguin in a blender!"

His face flickered from confusion to disgust before he began laughing uncontrollably. Once he calmed down he shook his head and stared at me. "You know that would not be appropriate, right? There will be kinnagardeners present. I hope you know better, mom. That's pretty sick and discustin'!"

"Yeah. You probably shouldn't take joke advice from me, but I see that you already know that."

"It was funny but not for little kids, ya know? You probly shouldn't be talkin' 'bout blendin' up penguins in front of people younger than first grade. Or maybe even not at all, really!"

Later that night, he had a school assembly. It was cute but I didn't see much of him--not because of obnoxious parents this time but because there was a much funnier child sitting closer to where I was. At each song's chorus, this little guy would scream the words at the top of his lungs. As the audience began giggling and the focus began shifting to him, he really amped it up by adding his own dance moves. He had just completed a 360 degree turn of full pelvic thrusts that would have made Elvis blush when the vice-principal hopped up on stage and whispered into his ear.

His little face fell and all of the parents groaned in disappointment; a nearby dad whispered,"There goes the entertainment!" He was determined to continue, but the vice-principal had predicted that and hid behind a Ficus tree on stage. The little boy would start grinning and getting antsy, clearly coming up with a plan, when he'd remember and turn around to see if she was still hiding behind the potted plant. She always was. He still got out a few yells and some hip wiggling, but she put an end to the majority of his theatrics. I know I wasn't the only one who was disappointed.

We're taking the kids to Busch Gardens this weekend! Florida people, you can get a free 2010 pass for children under 5. We are all looking forward to it but little kid is SUPER DUPER can't-talk-about-anything-else-making-it-impossible-to-get-stuff-done excited.

This post seems a little disjointed and unpolished, so I'm going to leave this picture of a baby hippo here to distract you from that:

Have a happy Friday!