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My Profile
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone... - 2009-11-05
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8:56 a.m. - 2009-06-28
Who knows how to party? WE know how to party! Despite the fluky weather, the uncertain number of guests to expect, and a back that was spazzed out so bad I couldn't sleep the night before, I had a feeling the party would be great. And it was. The best part, of course, was seeing my kid have so much fun. Wolf and his gang had a crazy good time. Mick was fretting beforehand but I had no worries. I told him that if a gang of kids couldn't have fun with a giant inflatable water slide, a bucket of water pistols, and a case of silly string then something was seriously wrong, so he should just be chill. Most of the parents dropped their kids and left, but a few stayed and that was okay too. Turns out one of the dads who stayed was a guy I went to high school with. One half of a set of twins who were our class's resident goofballs. (That he grew up to be a cop just added to the deliciousness. Larry said he was just as surprised by his career as I was.) One of the moms went to our school too, only she was a bit younger and had graduated in 1985. Another mom was an outlander but her husband was a local, so it was still old home week and everybody knew everybody in that, "Oh yeah! Your brother used to date my sister's best friend!" kind of way. Between sharing a geographic past and our kids' current school life there was plenty to talk and laugh about. At one point we adults were telling 'how we met' stories and one couple said they'd met at eHarmony. I laughed and said Mick and I met on Match.com. Sly Mick chimed in and boasted that Match was way better than eHarmony. I gave him an elbow. It had sounded like a cheerful one-up, but I knew he meant his catch was way better than the other guy's- the actual cyber meat market was moot. Booger. The boys (Wolf's party was a stag party) had a blast. I was correct about their being able to be entertained with the limited, but mondo cool amusements provided. The water slide was a huge hit and they climbed and flopped and slid and raced back to do it again and again. They howled and horsed around and shot each other with water pistols. They're all of an age that I could set out a couple of coolers- one full of Pepsi and the other with juice bottles, and when the hot dogs came off the grill they could help themselves. No fussing and fixing and preparing plates. No menu options beyond 'take it or leave it' either. In years past I would have made myself nuts trying to make sure each child was happy and would have put out a fricken buffet. This time it was chips, hot dogs, and for the grown-ups a big bowl of tuna-noodle salad to go with the dogs and chips. Kids don't eat pasta salad as a rule, but I figured the grown-ups would like it. They did. Leftovers were minimal. Nobody starved. And nobody complained. The dessert menu was just as stark. Wolf didn't want a regular cake, he wanted brownies. So Friday he made a huge pan of them (with a little help from me). We decorated the brownie pan with candles and a few birthday-ish bits of décor and served them up with ice cream sandwiches. Again, no 10 different kinds of ice cream and 14 varieties of sprinkles and making myself crazy. This streamlining is to a purpose beyond just thumbing my nose at Martha Stewart. By not making myself a stressed out mess I could relax and enjoy the party too. I had time to gas with the other parents and goof around with the kids. The money I didn't spend on massive decorations and a king's smorgasbord instead went toward Wolf's presents and a couple cool party activities. And really, what will the boys remember? Hand-painted Chinese lanterns and perfectly coordinated cloth napkins? That they had the option of five different kinds of chicken skewers? Nope. They'll remember the silly string war. An entire case of silly string. When has anyone ever had enough silly string? The boys fell down laughing after festooning the yard and each other with gaudy tangles of clown colored foam string. The one thing that struck us as we watched our kids cavort was how good to each other they were. No fighting. No crappy insults. None of that rude tomfoolery you'd expect from a pack of 12 year old boys. The kids were kind. Mannerly to us too. Their talk was littered with 'please' and 'thank you'. At present time I was nearly in tears to see how carefully the gifts and cards were chosen. My boy's friends really knew him. There was a lot of Indiana Jones stuff and Nerf weaponry and cards that made reference to jokes they shared. We parents marveled. These were supposed to be the 'bad kids'. The off ones. The kids too disruptive and anti-social to be in the mainstream. The un-fixable discipline cases and potential serial killers who needed to be culled from the herd lest they do damage to the 'normal' children. These boys who'd been labeled, rejected, and shoved out of their old schools, the supposed misfits and failures, and yet here they were. So very patient with each other. Kind. Helpful. Cooperative. We parents looked at each other and we all said how wonderful it would be if those harshly judgmental mainstream teachers and principals could see our boys together. The counselors who'd told us our kids were societal rejects. The administrators who'd frowned at us and made insults about our parenting and defective DNA. The ones who'd labeled us and our supposedly broken children as losers. Money sucking wastes of resources. Budget money that would be better spent on kids who had a future. Whatever antics these boys might have gotten up to in the classroom, whatever learning and neurological issues they have, there was no evidence of it yesterday. The boys played and laughed and joked and shared and took turns and not a single one of them said or did anything wrong. As each guest left Wolf gave him a hug and thanked him for the gift and for coming. The boys all said how they hoped they could get together again soon. And so they will. Unwelcome in the halls of mainstream academia, pushed out of their home districts, told they had no place in regular classes with those wonderful 'normal' kids, and rejected for simply being who they are… those boys are welcome at this house anytime. My son and his friends are terrific. It's the schools that are the failures.
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