Wine, Beer, and Some Sort of Party

Tomorrow is the Boy's 7th birthday. Wifey loves to throw birthday parties (well to be truthful, she likes holidays and special days such as birthdays). So she spent a few weeks months ago twisting herself mentally trying to decide if we should celebrate before his birthday, on his birthday or the Saturday after his birthday.

I, as a dutiful husband and father, just nodded my head thoughtfully and said, "Hmmmmm, yeah if you think that's best." (whatever latest decision she came up with).

And as the day got closer, she twisted herself some more wondering if Sunday was best or Saturday was best.

"Hmmmm, yeah that's tricky."

So Sunday, 5 boys and their parents started trickling over to our house for the party.

You know I hate kids' birthday parties. And as Wifey and I have agreed, if it's at all possible, she handles taking the kids to other kids' birthday parties.

The first kid came over with his dad, whom I'd never met. Apparently, he lives two blocks over. Most of the kids live in the general vicinity since they all attend the same elementary school. I asked the dad if he was staying, he said that would stay for a while, but then had to go run an errand for an hour and would come back.

I asked if he wanted to share a beer with me.

Then his eyes lit up and we popped a big shiny can of Sapporo

I told him I bought it that day at the grocery store just purely because of the nice shiny can.

And then another kids showed up with their Moms. And one accepted another beer and the other accepted w(h)ine.

And then the kids were running around like pure maniacs. They chasing each other with light sabers and slamming doors and bumping into each other. Basically having fun.

Normally, parents would frantic making sure their kid didn't act insane at another kid's house - embarrassing them. However, I kept the beer (by then we'd switched to good German Hefeweizen) and w(hine) flowing. And then, the parents just started talking to each other. We talked about the teachers, the property tax rate, and why no one can fix the low performing middle school.

The Dad that had to run an errand? He stayed for 2.5 hours as he determined that this party wasn't so bad after all. His kid was bouncing all over the place, but we didn't care and the other parents didn't care. And....he lived just around the corner, so why not top off his beer?

Hey, works for me.