Good Friday for my ES, not my MS

Yes, this is a photo of my ES's accomplished performance on Guitar Hero. Tonight, after attending a large boy-girl birthday party, he managed to make 100% twice (notice the little spot on the newspaper headline where it says notes hit: 100%). The second time, I told him to take a picture of it and promised to post it.

Side note about the party: At first my son said that 60 were invited to this party. When I expressed concern that they could fit 60 into their house, he whittled it down to 30. When I called to RSVP, I asked if they were doing presents. The mom said "Well, yes, they are," with just a hint of "why wouldn't we?" I'm curious what other mothers think about gifting at birthday parties.

See, I always wanted people to be low-key when we invited them to a birthday party for our son (meaning small token gifts). When he was in 1st grade, we discovered the wonderful option of the pool party. Our local park district in IL offered family swims on Sundays and we were able to pay $2 per child to have a pool party, providing our own snacks out in the hall. We invited his whole class (and did this for 3 years in a row - it was such fun). Because we anticipated larger numbers (but not 30, mind you) we hosted a round robin gift exchange. Each child was asked to bring a $2-5 wrapped gift labeled either neutral or boy or girl. Our family brought two such gifts and all the gifts were placed on the middle of the blanket. The guests drew numbers, then my son chose the first and last gifts and the guests chose based on their numbers (therefore, no guest got stuck with the last gift on the pile). They swam, ate cupcakes, drank juice and every kid went home with a gift and a small goody bag. A good time was had by all.

Tonight, my son took $10 as his gift. He refused a gift card, saying "What if she doesn't like to shop at the store you get a gift card from?". He even refused to put it in a card. "Mom, trust me, nobody does that. Nobody is probably bringing a present anyway." Obviously, my son thought this girl's mother invited 60 nobodies! Hope they all had fun. I don't even know because I was dealing with MS when ES got home and once ES told me about his accomplishments on Guitar Hero, I realized he should really head to bed, too. (Hey, at least I promised to blog/brag about him)

Now, MS - ARGGHHHHHH! He has been having some toileting issues for the past four days (I'm ready to put him back in diapers). Tonight, I whisked YS out of the bath and got him into clean p.j.s. Headed back to whisk out MS. Was greeted with "I'm sorry, Mommy. I did a little poopy in the tub, but I'm cleaning it all by myself, so don't you worry." There he stood, with a sponge (oh my - he must have gotten out to get that, didn't he??) pushing the said floaties all around the bottom of the tub. Perhaps, I wouldn't have gotten quite so mad, if it didn't seem like he'd been plotting this all week, dropping little verbal hints like, "if I made a mess in the tub, I'd be sure to clean it up, so you wouldn't have to." (Earlier in the week, I had asked him to help me with a chore. I put ES's muddy inflatable sled in the tub, filled it with water, handed MS a sponge and asked him to clean the mud off. He happily got in the tub and did a fine job. He was well proud of himself. Now I see where those wheels, they began a turnin'.)

No, I didn't crucify him - but I was good and mad, and he certainly went straight to bed (after a story from my head, involving a poop monster which Spiderman graciously helped them defeat and flush down the toilet, THE ONLY PLACE WHERE POOP MONSTERS EVER BELONG!!!!).

And to think, I intended to come on tonight and give you some inspirational Easter thoughts. I will try to post those tomorrow. (You can just be grateful that I didn't include photographic evidence of MS's Bad Friday!)