The Ruff Ruffman Party

I'm of the mind that children should be allowed to do crazy things with their parents while they're young, in the hopes for mellow teenagers not addicted to Wii. Wish me luck. With that goal in mind, we really enjoy birthday parties at our house. This year my daughter got to have her first one and since she wanted Rapunzel, Paul and I spent over an hour weaving a 12 foot yellow yarn braid. At one point it was so frustrating he tried flipping them across each other like the little girls in the movie. Note: did not work at home. We hung the braid from our treehouse and the darling guests got to take turns telling Rapunzel to let her hair down, and then we attached candy to be hauled up. Good time was had by all.

Fast forward two years to my son's birthday last weekend. He's a smart kid. He figured out if you invite the entire neighborhood, girls and boys, you get more gifts. I figured it was ok because in a few years we'll be at the two-friends-at-Boondocks stage and then teenage years, and I can't think about it or else I won't get to sleep tonight.

He has a really terrific, and did I say LARGE, group of kids his age here. And having them over is fun and exciting and in this case, explosive. PBS' Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman is his favorite show, and he wanted a Ruff science birthday. So we spent an hour and a half trying to get Ruff to realize his lifelong dream of flying without an airplane. We fizzled liquids in cups with baking soda, alka seltzer, and coke and mentos. Then we tried launching Ruff into the air taped to peanuts. (I chose peanuts because the Jays love them and I don't have to clean them up.) Great ideas from Ruff's website at PBSkids.org. Finally, we all decorated our own rockets with really cool duck tape and launched them over the tree tops with a borrowed pvc and bike pump launcher from the Scout trailer. I think the kids just barely outscreamed Paul each time one was launched.

I have to say, it was tons of fun. Everyone brought the nicest gifts and we're so grateful to live in this place where everyone is welcome and everyone likes to have fun. And fortunately, I'm good for another two years.