My childhood friend Jennie turned 40 this summer (as I will later in the Fall) and invited us to a BBQ at her house to celebrate. A subsequent email indicated it would be less of a BBQ and more of a pot luck, but that there would be a bouncy house and water slide and we should bring a change of clothes if we wanted to join in.
A bouncy house and water slide? Who knew there even WERE such things! And while it seemed like an odd way to celebrate crossing the threshold to middle-age, I knew the kids would get a blast out of the jumpy house, so I packed up their bathing suits and arranged for Grandma to join us. Well, it turned out I'd only packed Daniel and Max's bathing suits, but luckily I had a change of clothes for Caroline and she didn't mind getting her shorts and tshirt wet!
At the party, I discovered that Jennie was sharing the celebration with a 10-year old whose birthday had also just passed, and suddenly the jumpy house made more sense. There weren't a ton of folks around when we got there, and only three boys running through using the jumpy house. Over the course of the afternoon, a whole bunch more showed up and there were at times as many as a dozen 8-12 year olds bouncing around and sliding down. Easily, my little not-yet-three year olds could've gotten lost in the mix, but the "big kids" were great at helping them climb the ladder to the top of the slide and then, seeing that Daniel and Max were afraid to come down alone, they took turns sliding down with Teenies on their laps.
Needless to say, none of my kids shied away from the attention of older kids and they had a blast going up and down and up and down for hours. And as if that wasn't enough, there was even a sno-cone machine and chocolate cake for dessert!
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| Briefly in their good "party clothes" |
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| The jumpy house |
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| Caroline went up and down solo! |
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| Max greeted her at the bottom |
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| Jumping! |
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