Festivities.

This lovely Sunday I had to work, again.

The kids have a cousin who turned five today and her party was this morning. We had to be out of the house early for the brunch party, so I got up extra early to have some quiet Sabbath time before the wild Indians had to get ready.

And wild they were.

Normally, our seating arrangement in the car is the two bigger kids in the very back, me and the babe in the middle and the parents up front, BUT the middle middle seat that normally folds down and pushes forward so R can get into her seat was broken.

T picked up her niece and nephew from school one day last week and the little monsters stuffed the magical loop that makes the seat move waaaaaaaay down inside the tiny crack it comes out of.

T spent a good fifteen minutes trying to get it back out this morning before we just headed out with R sitting between the small one and me. The forty minute trip was riddled with yells from R to be left alone and screams from the baby trying to get her toys.

Serenity now.

The party was actually really great.

In keeping with the ridiculously extravagant child birthday party theme, there was a massive layout of food upstairs and a wild kid zone in the basement. A HUGE screen TV played Beauty and the Beast in one corner and in the other corner Rapunzel was painting pictures on little girls' hands and Bobo, the hottest clown to ever live was making balloons.

Bobo had no face make up on, just wore a stupid colored outfit and beautiful blue eyes. I spent a good twenty minutes with my kids in line for balloons animals, letting every other child in the room go ahead of us so that I could keep chatting with Blue Eyes -- I mean Bobo.

Then Rapunzel did a magic show and since Tangled is one of my favorite movies of all time, I was almost as taken with her as the kids were. At the end she a real live bunny. A BUNNY!

Pizza was served to the kids, and no one threw up on me, so that was cool.

T's sister was there, too and I talked with her for a but, making a serious effort to not belittle her in my head. I did pretty well and I think I can like her since I don't have to work for her. While I was with her, Bobo was making freshly spun cotton candy.

I wasn't kidding about extravagant.

After the kids finished gorging themselves on crap and pizza-shaped crap, we headed home. J fell asleep in the car and Monkey ALMOST DID. He was nearly out when R decided to rile him up again and got herself in huge trouble.

At home, baby went to bed, J slept in the car and R got sent to her room. T barely made it into the house before hitting the couch and conking out. I followed suit and passed out on the playroom couch. We slept until it was time to go to T's mom's house for Linner.

That's right, today we ate Brunch and Linner.

And the kids were massively confused.

On the way out the door, we all made bathroom stops. After the kids had gone I went in and a moment later, thanks to the wonderful layout of my bathroom, the door hit me in the leg and head when E tried to open it.

"Um." Was all I said and I could hear T laughing, since the kids have done the same to her countless times.

When I got out to the kitchen E apologized for hitting me with the door and then asked me what I was doing in the bathroom when I was supposed to be working.

Haha.

Thankfully, he hadn't napped and he had spent his time fixing the seat in the car so all the kids were back in place and there was no fighting or screaming en route.

Cut to Linner.

At Grandma's house, we met up with T's sister and the kids again and all six of the little imps just went WILD. They were screaming and jumping on beds and running all through the house. We brought Willie Nelson along and whenever the kids screamed he would howl. We tried to distract them with TV, but whatever crack they put in that cotton candy must not have worked its way out of their systems yet.

Somehow, we got them all fed and I collapsed into the massage chair for some nanny recoup time.

On the way home T asked me what we should name the baby and after some serious thought I suggested Kimmy Junior. She laughed.

"We love you, and you have job security for the rest of your life, but no."

Deal.

And in that security, I shall begin my fight for more Sundays off.

And maybe more naps.