I was Alex's date to a party this afternoon. We attend a playgroup with two brothers, one is two and the other turned four this week. The four year old, Kennan, invited Alex to his birthday party this weekend. Alex got his very own invitation, and this would be the very first little kid party he's ever been to.
It was outside in Kennan's backyard, despite the 100 degree heat, all the kids seemed to have a ball. They had a couple of pools setup, a sprinkler, a sandbox and a little bounce house. There were games, a treasure hunt, a pinata, hot dogs, cupcakes (though all Alex ate was 1/2 a hot dog and about 50 olives) and at the end there was a little firework show.
Alex, aka Mr. Independent, abandoned me at the door and ran off with his friends to splash in the pool. Most of the kids were bigger than him, though there were about four around his age, he still preferred to hang out with the big kids. Rejected by my date, I elected to sit in the shade on the porch with a glass of chilled white wine with the other parents. I was fine with this arrangement.
When it was finally time for cupcakes, Alex shared his with me, all he wanted was the candy off the top, and a little chocolate icing to smear in his hair. By the time present opening came around, he was throughly worn out, sitting in the corner, thumb in mouth clutching one of Kennan's bother Cayden's stuffed bears. We declined a second dip in the kiddie pool, took our goodie bag and went home, Alex crying the entire way because the car was hot. Once at home, it only took about 30 seconds to put him down for his nap, still with chocolate icing all over his face and hair.
It occurred to me today that I am going to love the next few years with Alex. The years when a $10 kiddie pool, lawn sprinkler and a paper bag full of candy can make a kid's whole day. A woman stopped me at the store this morning, commenting on how cute Alex was (we were buying Gatorade and he kept grabbing bottles saying "Mine! mine!"). She told me her kids were teenagers now and how much she missed her boys being little. "Enjoy this time, it goes so fast" she told me. Yea, yea, sure, sure I thought as I nodded and smiled at her, while trying not to get too frustrated at Alex for knocking almost every single bottle of Gatorade off the bottom two shelves. At that moment, I would have loved having a surly teenager sulking by my grocery cart instead of this wild animal who is entering the "terrible two's" like a torpedo before his second birthday even arrives. But today, watching a dozen kids aged 1-5 years run wild and splash and laugh, soaking up every second of the warm weather and the cool water. Getting so excited about cracking open a pinata and scurrying to get their share of Smarties and Tootsie Rolls, I think I understand why someone would miss this. This is the fun stuff. Sure there are challenges and times when you want to run screaming from the room never wanting to return, but for the most part, the fun of childhood is intoxicating. It's contagious, and I think I've caught the bug.
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