the wiener mom and the primary reason that delicious cheese crackers and trampolines do not mix

The last day of kindergarten... big wiener has successfully faux-graduated from his first year of real school. Lord please help me; it's going to be a long summer. The summer began, appropriately enough with a good ol' fashioned ice cream social at a neighbor's house. Please note, we do not know these neighbors very well. Also please note that on the long walk from the bus stop to the un-child friendly tea store to buy daddy wiener some loose tea leaves for father's day (a whole other story) and then to the ice cream social, wieners become ravenously hungry. Big wiener decides to eat a granola bar, well really just selective pieces of said granola bar before dumping the undesirables back into random pockets in the diaper bag (where I will reach in and find them stuck to keys and stuff for weeks). He unwraps the bar, and then ceremoniously tosses the wrapper over his shoulder ON TO THE GROUND and continues walking. What the F? Why is my child littering? Daddy wiener and I don't litter. Where would he learn such a thing? How could he be so ungreen? I look around quickly to see if anyone has seen this embarrassing display of careless unenvironmentalism... no one has seen. I ask, "what are you doing?" He looks at me, "what?" he has no idea. "You can't just throw your wrapper on the street, do you know what that's called?" "Nope" he answers. How can I have gone so wrong. I send him back to pick up the wrapper and lecture him on the pitfalls of littering, destroying the environment, etc. I'm pretty sure most of it when in one pretty little ear and out the other. Oh well.

Meanwhile, middle wiener has eaten an entire sandwich bag of cheddar jack cheezit's that was hanging around the diaper bag for who knows how long. The contents of the bag were meant to be shared between wieners, but he's happy and not shrieking at me so I let him eat the whole bag. Mistake number one.

Mistake number two. Stopping at the damn ice cream social in the first place. I should have just walked on by and pretended that I forgot to go. But, good neighbor that I am I stopped at the effing thing (I am!) We are greeted at the driveway by a young guest of the social who goes on to display incredibly unsocial behavior. He busts around the corner and sees us, stops and says, "YOU were invited to the ice cream social?!" in disbelief. Who the eff does this little s.o.b think he is? The day that one of my wieners talks to an adult like that is the day that I think of something really horrible to follow that phrase (I'll work on it) What else could I do but curl my lip dramatically and say, "Yeaaaaa." It felt good to stoop to his adolescent level.

We head around to the back and the nightmare continues. There is a trampoline. A very large and crowded trampoline. I am an anal retentive rule following rule follower and I'm pretty sure that for the sake of uncracked skulls and unbroken bones you're not supposed to have more than two people on a trampoline at a time. There are six kids on the trampoline and wonder of wonders my little wieners rush up to join in the fun. I make them wait. Someone tries to get the kids off of the trampoline so the smaller kids can have a turn. Basically they reply with, "make us" I don't personally know any of these jumping non-rule followers, so I wait for one of their responsible parents to clear them out so the little kids can have a turn to bounce their brains around. Guess what? No one does, my little wieners and I are invisible to them.

Finally some nice woman approaches the ring of hell and tells the kids that they can only have a little more time because other kids are waiting. How long could it be? Two minutes, three, four maybe? No, she gives them ten more minutes! Ten! Who the eff gives kids ten more minutes of anything? I know that's extreme, but in wiener world it's two minutes or three minutes and since the little wieners can't tell time, it's completely up to my discretion how long those two or three minutes actually last. My little wieners wait patiently in the grass while they slap mosquito's away.

Finally the kids clear out, amidst much protest. The little wieners scramble over and I boost them up and away they bounce. Except that middle wiener has never been on a trampoline and is suddenly hysterical and limp, being bounced around against his will. I hand baby wiener off to someone who looks trustworthy and enter through the hole in the nylon net that leads to hell to pick up middle wiener. I stand him up and give him a pep talk. I send him on his way with instructions and he goes down again. He cries. I go in again. I stand him up. He falls again. He finally figures out that it's kind of fun to just sit there and get bounced around. He laughs. He vomits delicious cheese crackers on the trampoline.

Now at this point one would expect that the trampolining would take a sudden and violent pause, but no. These kids will let nothing get in the way of their illicit bouncing good time. They continue to bounce around as I yell at them to stop. Someone gets a roll of paper towel. I have to go in once again to get middle wiener out. I know that a whole lot more cheese crackers were consumed than have come up yet. He cries. He's having fun! I leave the host to clean up the puddle and get shoes. Now big wiener is crying, he doesn't understand why he has to stop bouncing. Because I effing say so. We go home. School has been out for approximately an hour and a half. I think that says it all.