Arr! It was a pirate birthday!

I wish I had gotten more pirate-related birthday pictures, but there is only so much one person can do limping around 30-someodd children in a gymnastics place. My best friend from childhood thought it would be a fine idea to have a gymnastics birthday party for her now 6-year-old and invite about 35 kids because you know more than half never show up. Not this time. She had more than 30 and it was like hell on earth. Three children made me want to chew my own teeth and spit them as poisonous darts at these little hellions. Swear to God, if I would have been able to get my hands around their throats I would have choked the life out of them. *taking deep breaths* My own offspring was pretty well-behaved, which made me proud. The little party hostess the gymnastics place gave us was a piece of shit, too. First impression of her with her nosering wasn't great, but I can get around that. However, she was stupid and young. She sat 30-someodd children down and tried to talk to them over a giant boombox and give them instructions. The children had about five balance beams of assorted heights about five trampolines on which to play. She tells the children the safety things: don't jump from one trampoline to the next, same for the balance beams, only one kid at a time on the trampolines. Ok, great. Got it? Good. Only, 30-someodd kids ranging in age from 3 and up didn't get it. After about three times of starting over, she finally got them to follow the directions. I suggested to her that she assign half to one section and the other half to the other, to which she got really snotty in her response. I wanted to pull that nose ring out and shove it down her throat. I won't even get started on how abrupt she was when helping the birthday boy log who gave him what and save the reuseable gift bags and tissue.

I KNOW I'm PMSing now, but still. Worst part for me was that my friend paid $200 for all of this and the only thing that was provided was the lovely nose-ringed hostess, the facilities for an hour of fun and 30 minutes of party time. She had to bring all the drinks, the cake, the snacks, the goody bags, the party hats, all the paper stuff, etc. I'm thinking I could have made a car payment with all of it. But, fun was had by all the children, if not the parents. Hot Rod had a blast most certainly. The pirate themed stuff was really cute. The plates looked like little treasure maps and the birthday boy had a pirate's hat. Very cute.

This is the birthday boy and one of Hot Rod's best friends.

My kids call the three children in my BF's family their cousins because we really are like family, except we like each other. Here is an example of just how much our kids are like cousins. This is Birthday Boy's oldest sister pestering Hot Rod.

Looks like my son was macking on the chick next to him before big sister really pissed him off. Was sort of funny. She really is good with him, this was just one of those moments too good for her to let go by.

Hot Rod on the balance beam.

And, Hot Rod swinging on a rope. Note the Vikings jersey. Our family is in mourning right now. Please bring pot-luck dishes for the next few days.


Monday, we'll be running some errands and I'm going to take the boy back to see Birthday Boy. Hot Rod was very disappointed that he didn't get to spend more time playing directly with his buddy. So, we'll take advantage of the day out of school and one of my last days home before going to the 9 to 5 grind.