It's Rome's day of birth!

Last Saturday we threw a little birthday fete for Rome, and invited a few friends in the neighborhood over for some grub, cake, and entertainment for the kids. My brother and his wife came down from North Carolina to help us prepare the night before, so I was beginning to think that throwing a kid's party was easy peasy...


From Murphy's Law: "If anything can go wrong, it will" (at the most inopportune time)

Helping the birthday boy celebrate

Throw in a handful of boys (all under the age of 10), bags of candies my husband thought to add as treats, and you can imagine how chaotic our little abode became within 10 minutes. I had already downed an aspirin way before Rome blew out the candle on his birthday cake, but let's just start at the beginning:

1. Michael, age 7, somehow found his way through the safety locks on our entertainment system, and scattered most, if not all, of our DVDs, video games, and music CDs before his mother could stop him. I had one helluva time trying to gather everything, and keep myself from wanting to duct tape the kid's hands so he couldn't take them back out again. It happened twice before my brother finally threw everything in a laundry basket and hauled the stuff into our room.
2. Ken, age 5, jumped on our bean bag from the arm of the couch and---yes, you guessed it---put a hole into the bag with all the little beads spilling out before you could blink an eye. I had to keep Rome from putting the beads into his mouth, while the other mothers yelled at their kids to stop spreading the stuff any further into the living room. J managed to sweep up most of those wretched beads before patching the hole with duct tape, and promptly removed the bean bag from the premises.
3. Michael went into the closet where we were hiding the stick for the pinata, and whacked little Xander (age 4) over the head with it. Intentionally. In retaliation, Xander took the guitar (from Guitar Hero) and speared Michael in the stomach. We ended up with two kids after each other with the intent to harm and, quite possibly, permanently maim each other. The parents were busy eating in the kitchen---away from all the chaos. It took three of us to pull them apart, take away the weapons of destruction, and calm them down before someone really had to dial 911.
4. Ken would not stop running around the house. He's like the Energizer Bunny that "keeps going and going," but on Red Bull. The first time I saw him, he was running around with a handful of Mylar balloons, and some cake in his hands. The second time I saw him, the balloons were still in his hand, but the mound of cake disappeared. Where'd it go? In the trash. I snatched him up, right in front of his mom and grandmother, and told him that he's not getting any more cake, and he's not going to participate in the pinata game. All I got were tears for all that effort, and I still let him have a whack at the pinata. Ugh.
5. One of the gifts (a toy car) ended up getting smashed to pieces by all the rough-housing the boys were doing in the living room. I don't know exactly how or who broke it, but I was fighting to keep my slippers on my feet instead of whacking someone's bottom. Worse, it was OUR gift to Rome that got broken. Jeez!

However, despite all the confusion, the mess, and the pandemonium that raged during Rome's birthday party, things sort of calmed down a bit after the pinata game; the kids were thoroughly spanked by their respective mothers, the food finally began to settle in, and everyone seemed happy when we broke out the ice cream and hot chocolate fudge. I even broke out the disposable tupper ware to force our guests to pack as much food into the plastic containers to take home with them.

Rome enjoys the party

What's most important is that Rome completely enjoyed himself, managed to make it through his party unscathed (thanks to his uncle keeping a close eye on him), and went to bed totally pooped. He didn't get up until 9am the following morning, so everyone got to sleep in a bit. I swear, I needed a whole day to recover from all that excitement and fracas.

In retrospect, I've finally decided that I am never, ever, EVER going to have a party in the house for Rome ever again. Well, not in our house at least!