My Daducation

Posts Tagged ‘Birthdays’

As a kid you often wonder why your parents get so upset about seemingly inconsequential things. Like leaving your shoes in the middle of the kitchen. Is this really a big deal? Even if Mom trips and throws the meatloaf across the kitchen, does it really warrant the screaming that occurs afterwards?

Then you become a parent…..and well, things like that seem to start to make sense.

I have found myself in several situations with my 8-year-old where I ask him “What were you thinking?!” Most of these things involve some type of physical altercation with his 5-year-old brother, where the 5-year-old is dangerously close to being knocked unconscious. Other times it involves his running across traffic when he knows to look both ways, or knocking his drink across the dining room when he is supposed to be sitting calmly and eating. For the third time. That meal.

But one thing above all others took the cake. Literally.

One of his classmates invited the 8-year-old to a birthday party at a local place where they pad the walls so the kids can bounce off of them for three hours while the parents run errands. These places must make a mint because this place is always overflowing with kids. I’m not sure what they charge to do this, but judging from the line to get in, the parents find the time away well worth it.

My son immediately spots his best friend, another classmate and runs to meet up with him. Now, it’s not that I think his classmate is a bad kid, because he isn’t. But he has an insatiable appetite for attention. Which causes him to get in trouble in class. A lot. Every day in fact. Which doesn’t seem to faze him. Or his parents. Or my son.

I am one of about three parents (out of 13) that stick around for the party. My wife and I aren’t ones to drop our kid and roll, particularly when we don’t know the other people very well. It’s not that I’m not a trusting person……OK, that’s not true. Basically I don’t trust anyone. Apparently other parents have no hang-ups with this. In fact, they seem to run over each other during the getaway.

So the party seems to go along just fine, with kids bouncing off the walls, each other, and the floor, which is not padded very well. There are some tears and minor bruises. One kid has to stop as his asthma acts up. I go over to assist. He can’t find his inhaler so I punch him in the arm and this distracts him from his asthma. Problem solved.

Soon it is time for cake and presents. The 13 kids devour the cake much like a pack of wolves take down an elk. It’s not pretty. Through the course of this, many small pieces of cake land on the floor. The pack of wolves soon move over to the chair where the guest of honor is about to ceremoniously open his gifts. Except two wolves are missing.

I find them under the table. It’s my son and his friend. And they are eating the cake off the floor.

I instruct my son to get up and go over to where the birthday boy is opening gifts. He looks at me. He laughs. He continues to eat cake off the floor, laughing with his friend.

My pulse quickens. The blood rushes to my neck and face, a sure sign to observers that I’m about to blow. I say it again. He looks at me and ignores me again. The rage boils. I walk around the table to where he is laying, grab his leg and drag him out. I stand him up and say some things right in his face that I won’t repeat here. It’s quite possible he wets himself as he has never seen me this angry.

Once the birthday boy is done opening gifts, I immediately grab him and we leave. I don’t say anything on the way home, but he knows I am pissed.  He is grounded from the computer for two weeks, which is the worst thing you can do to him.

But I get my revenge. I manage to work in a reference to eating cake off the floor every once in a while. It goes something like this:

Son: Can I order a cheese quesadilla here?

Me: You better. I don’t see in the menu where they serve cake on the floor.

Ah, yes. Sweet revenge.