Birthday Madness

Now for the party!

Bear's favorite books and current obsession are/is the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus books and Greek mythology.  He had the idea to play capture the flag for his birthday party, and at some point we got the idea to turn it into kind of a Percy Jackson theme.  We invited all the older kids in the neighborhood, plus a few friends from school.  We met at the clubhouse for pizza, and then headed to the park, where Mike had spent the morning using his mad boy scout skills to lash bamboo poles together for the Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter banners I had made.  We distributed foam swords and colored headbands to each of the kids and had them draw a paper from a basket to tell them which mythological god was their parent.  For example: You are a son of Zeus, the Greek god of sky and lightning.  Or, You are a daughter of Bellona, Roman goddess of war and battle strategy.  We had a Greek team (camp half-blood) and a Roman team (camp Jupiter).  I explained the rules, and the madness began.  There was much beating about the head by foam swords and much yelling and running  and shouting and arguing about whether one had actually been tagged and had to go to jail.  I hope the kids all had fun, and I hope that no neighborhood relations were ruined by the experience.  There were certainly a few heated moments which Mike and I tried to diffuse as well as we could.  After the party, a few of the party-goers came home with us for a bit more partying, and by the time we were back to just us, around 5:00pm, I was pretty spent.  I'm happily letting Beaver spend the evening watching TV, and Bear is occupied with the lego technic sets he received as birthday gifts.  I had visions of the cool pictures I would get of the party, but I ended up spending more time refereeing and with my head spinning from the craziness of it all and I didn't get many pictures at all.

You can't see it in the picture, but the banner says Camp Jupiter.  There was another one for Camp Half-Blood.  Mike took a picture of it on his phone, but I haven't loaded it onto the computer yet.

 Our littlest Roman demi-god brandishing his sword.

I can't believe I have a ten-year-old.  I remember being ten.  I thought ten was the perfect age, because you are still young enough to be a kid (I was not a child that looked forward to growing up!), but you were old enough to have a BB gun.  Don't ask me where that logic came from, since I never had, or particularly wanted, a BB gun.  Nevertheless, I specifically remember having that thought at age 10.  I also remember that I considered my parents to be thoroughly adults when I was 10, but surely I'm not so much an adult!  Never mind the fact that I was the same age when Bear was born that my mom was when I was born, so I am in fact currently the same age that she was when I was 10.  I guess I'm still not a child that looks forward to growing up.

Actually, I've stopped dreading getting older.  Dreading it won't change anything, and so far every year seems to be better than the last. I feel much better about myself now than I did 10 years ago, and I wouldn't go back if I could.  My kids, though.....that's a different story.  I hate having them grow up.  A ten-year-old is lots of fun, though, so I'll take mine and enjoy him.  Even when he's shooting foam arrows at me, as he is doing at this very moment.  Here's to another great ten years!