Had the birthday party today for the little one. The “friends” party as she likes to call it. There were 9 children in my home for two hours today and it felt like an eternity. We had burned through all of the planned activities in the first half hour leaving an hour and a half for cake and ice cream. Song, candles, eat took five minutes.

Luckily for me, three of the moms took pity on me and stayed for the festivities. I am so thankful to these women for coming up with interesting games, on the fly, to entertain these kids.

Nothing broke but every child had a moment of tears. The birthday girl ran into her room to get something to show her friends and was smacked in the forehead by the door knob. Earlier the children had been playing in her room and put a bunch of pillows behind her door. God only knows why but they were forgotten and when my daughter ran in her room throwing the door open it reverberated back at an incredible force and smacked her in the head. Of course the door knob was the decorative brass kind so she had an interesting pattern on her forehead for the rest of the afternoon. Luckily no one could see it under the bag of frozen peas I made her hold to her head.

Then there was the child from hell who wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t share, took toys from everyone, threw things and had absolutely no manners at all. She was the source of all the tears save the door knob incident.

Those two hours were like being in algebra again. Minutes ticked so slowly by and each time I looked at the clock I was amazed to see that the hands hadn’t really moved. I even considered hiding in the bathroom at one point but thought that might set a bad example.

Oh well I have some great pictures and I have a year before I have to do it again. Chuck E. Cheese is looking good.