Four Years In

Wow! Four Years old. Josh's party was a total hoot.

Only Anna H. showed up from the kid contingent (of 10 we'd invited), but that darling little diva was more than enough. She and Josh charged around in the bouncy house until they dropped...literally. They collided several times, and Grandma O. was watching her with a careful eye, especially after one collision left Josh with a bruise on his cheek, and wondered aloud if Anna knew she was in "enemy territory." They just bounced off each other and threw themselves back



into the fray, and Jamie and "More Jamie" are now absolutely required party entertainment as they chased and played and wore the butts off the small ones...at one point, they even snuck into the bouncy house (for a very quick moment)...the poor girl manning the toy was a bit uneasy about that, but Devon turned on his charm and the little girl had no choice but to be turned into goo. The then Uncles made a point of keeping their part of the chase outside the inflatable.

We got to see everyone I wanted to see...everyone was as pretty as a Christmas present since they had all come directly from church...and shy, housemouse Helen was simply a wonder...chatting it up with everyone, glowing like a candle...and she even worked up enough nerve to go up to my brothers and hug the stuffing out of them. I was so proud of her. That was the bravest thing I'd ever seen her do.

Sadly, we lost the whole contingent after our scheduled hour and a half...Mom and Dad and Grandpa and Grandma O. had to get cantata-ing. Heidi M. and her mom, Kay, had to leave because Kay's knees were hurting. Rhonda and Tim headed out for similar reasons. Harry and Helen wanted to change out of their church clothes, and Irene left with them. Technically, the boys should have bolted for the Cantata, but they stalled as long as they could so that they could play in the arcade and rack up tickets for the small ones. We had just time to open their present to Josh and Heidi and Anna's present to Josh before we were left on our own on a day that had suddenly become as dreary and blech as it was possible to get.

I think, the next time we have a party, we'll schedule our time better...we thought an hour and a half would cover it, but we were only thinking really of the time in the bouncy thing...We forgot to allot time for the cake and presents, and they had another party in that room at 4 p.m.. Next year, maybe an hour and half for bouncing and then one more half hour for cake and such. Still, I think everyone had a great time.

Back home, I had just time to throw in some gingerbread cookies, and we were descended upon again. We handed out the coffee and they handed Josh presents. Mom had sent Josh a "Twas the Night Before Christmas" book, and everytime he turned the page, he'd hear a recording of either Mom or Dad reading to him. It made me cry. The Grands O. had given Josh a laptop with more bells and whistles than his previous ones...it looks really promising. Tim and Rhonda gave him great quanities of playdough and Josh was so distracted by that for a ti

me that we couldn't get him to open the rest. More books, more toys...I fear we may need to add three more rooms to the house come Christmas time.