No Flips: Bounce House Politics

So what if the bounce house was a 20 minute drive, we were so there. The cute little park near our old house was having a family fun day, fate spoke to me in that I was was going to be up in EPA near the start, and needed to be at Stanford towards the end of the party so we headed on over. But my poor children have suddenly entered the "too big to be a little kid and too small to be a big kid" stage.

Not since a few Halloweens ago when the cheer squad took over one pumpkin patch bounce house and the paranoid and panicky parents hovered around the other have I experienced such bounce house issues. It was a sparsely populated event so they hopped right in, at that point two of the bigger kids inside so I cautioned "watch our for the little girl" since my boys are quite the jumpers. All was good and they moved on to the climbing structure, played on the pirate ship, had a healthy lunch of hot dogs, Doritos and cupcakes (together they ate less than half of each, weirdos) and sauntered back for more bouncing.

Alas, the three wild really big (9 years old) kiddos had entered the fray and they were going at each other like wildcats, so now my kids were officially "the small kids". All was okay, though, even after Donovan got hit in the head accidentally with a post-somersault foot thwack. He got some mommy love and returned to the jungle that was the bounce house. Keegan, though, who's recently reading all over himself, had of course read the rules, one of which was "no flips." And one of the kids just kept flipping. Quite impressive, but a bit of a hazard. Seriously, the kid would just knock the little guys out of the way. Not in a mean way, just barely noticing. Keegan could not stand it any longer, he's quite the rule follower..."No flips!" he kept yelling, and was ignored. "No flips!" he finally had to step out. He also no longer lets me bring glass bottles to the pool, party pooper.

So I'm consoling him, realizing what a total wimp of a mom I am and saying lets give them a few more minutes then I'll ask them to give the little kids a turn. I turn to a nearby mom, who has a little guy in there too, and try to reign her him as a back-up "so when do we kick those guys out?"

"Oh, are they a problem?" Turns out she has an older son in there, too. "I know one [indicating Donovan] got kicked in the head but that was an accident."

"Well, they are sort of knocking the kids out of their way, and my son's quite the sticker for rules so just can't handle the flipping." Of course her son was the flipper. Ironically, she ended up taking her younger son out after he tried to prevent kids from coming in, and eventually they all came out and Keegan could jump to his heart's content until mean mommy made him leave so she could drop the kids off with daddy.

I swear if my son can yell at a guy twice his size I should be able to handle three kids in a bounce house.

Photohunt: Support

Well, my parents sure have supported me this week, taking the kids so I could work while my husband was out of town. But no photo for that.

I usually manage to avoid watching my son scale this at the park, since it scares the bejeezes out of me. But I promised to watch him, so distracted myself by snapping some photos.

Note the very tiny and high up supports - aack!

For more photos head over to PhotoHunt.

Heroes in our Midst

A few weekends ago, we visited some the local kid-friendly places in sunny Sunnyvale (okay, it was actually one of few rainy days we've had this winter) and we were fortunate enough to meet some everyday heroes.

We discovered Hero #1 at the library during the Spanish story hour. Jamie (pronounced Hyymiieee by the author) pranced and “harmonicad” his way through an entertaining hour. The kids clapped, laughed (mine laughed the loudest at the caterpillar who didn't want to go without gas), swam and cooked and had a rousing good time. This guy clearly loves his job and was a hero to all the kids.

We ran into our next hero at nearby Washington Park, flying a remote controlled plane. All you need to draw a crowd (of kids, that is) at a neighborhood park is some sort of flying object. Our kids lined up behind him (he did have one of his own), taking turns at the controller, and madly chasing his plane around when it wasn't their turn. I was impressed he was willing to give even my 3YO a turn, and even more astounded the little guy got the plane in the air. Amazingly, the plane "got stuck [in a tree] only once” and the kids had a blast while the other parents got to chat under the trees.

And finally we happened upon some rocket building boy scouts. I had noticed the various homemade rockets earlier and when I saw the poor plane's day was coming to an end, I distracted the kids with the promise of rockets over yonder in the mist. The older kids were only too happy to give our little kinders a turn. I should not be surprised at their kindness; they are boy scouts after all. But in contrast to the remote-controlled plane guy, the adults in the crowd would barely make eye contact. The scouts were only too open to letting the little guys have a turn launching the rockets, warning us when they ran out of "fuel" (actually water) that the rockets wouldn't go too far. More water was found and all the kids had a blast (hah!) even after the rain started.

I never knew I was going to like living here so much.

Cross-posted at Not Just A Working Mom.