Yesterday was a busy Saturday.  Monkey had been invited to TWO birthday parties to be held on the same day.  Now, for some of you out there, this might be a common occurrence, especially if you have more than one child or a child who is friends with everyone, however this was new to me.  Luckily for us, the two parties weren't overlapping or at the same time, forcing us to choose which party to go to - a fate worse than death to an almost-6 year old.

Party one was for a girl that Monkey became fast friends with in Kindergarten, a truly sweet girl.  We'll call her Claire (remember, we change names to protect the innocent around here).  Her party was at 11:00, at a local park, near the lake.  I'm thinking "this will be fun for the kids, lots of room to run around, they're grilling hot dogs, I like it!" until we get there and it's nine-THOUSAND degrees outside and about 1000% humidity.  I've always said that kids have anti-freeze in their blood (when I was growing up, I'd see them swimming in the ocean in March).  Apparently, they also have coolant in their blood.  God's little radiators.  I was thankful that the tables and such for the event were under a grove of trees, making it only eight thousand degrees.  Unfortunately, in these parts, shade has no effect on humidity.  

Claire's parents planned well, though.  They had lots of ice-cold drinks for the children and parents, lots of food, lots of good humor.  Other than being really hot, I had a good time and the kids had a great time.  Monkey got to see many of her friends from school and play hard, as kids do.  Little Man got to chase geese and throw sticks into the water and basically run amok.  Neither of them ate much lunch (because of the heat and excitement, I assume) but they sure didn't miss out on cake!  

Shortly after lunch, we headed home to get Little Man down for his nap.  We only had about 2 hours before the next party started.  This one, also for a classmate, was to start at 3:00.  We'll call him Sean.  His party was indoors (YAY!) at a big bounce house.  There were actually four different inflatables  in the bounce room.  Since I had to wake up Little Man from his nap, he wanted nothing to do with anything for about 30 minutes or so, then I couldn't keep him off them.  They had a toddler area (Sean has younger sisters) for the little ones and then, of course, the giant slide and obstacle course.  I followed Little Man around most of the time, making sure he followed the rules, so Monkey I would only catch glimpses of.  She was too busy running with her friends  (a look into our future, perhaps?).  After the bounce room, everyone moved to the party room for cake and ice cream and presents.  Little Man kept trying to open the presents and when that didn't work, he kept trying to go back into the bounce room.   Again, a good time was had by all.

Having two birthdays in one day certainly makes the day go by faster!