the wiener mom, still crazy after all these years

It's official, I have been the wiener mom for 7 years now. Seven glorious years filled with vehicles, mud and hugs. Big wiener turned 7, so much older than 6. What amazes me the most is that even after 7 years, I still don't understand them. The wieners. What makes them tick. What makes them do the things they do. What makes them obsess over things with wheels/wings/treads. This was never more apparent to me than at Big wiener's Birthday party.

We had a string of nasty viruses at our house and so Big wiener's big party had to be postponed, much to his dismay and at the obvious peril of a dozen blue frosted beach-with-shark double chocolate cupcakes not seeing the light of another day. Because of the postponement we had a smaller party than planned, as all of our original party-goers weren't able to make it. It was a good thing, because while I thought that the theme of the party was SHARKS! it was in fact WIENER FUELED CHAOS! It turns out that the decorations and party favors for the two parties are identical, it's the party games that send the party into a downward spiral of insanity.

First of all, let's just say that Big wiener is a cautious wiener. A sweet wiener. A rule-following wiener. Let's also just say that apparently there aren't that many of them around. We had 5 party guests and Big and Middle wiener. I had everything mapped out for a lovely 90 minute party, including painting individual treasure boxes to keep, eating pizza and watermelon, opening presents, singing happy birthday and eating massive blue frosted cupcakes. We had the party in the back yard, so they could also play and climb and dig if they had the time. So... it ends up that my scheduled party itenerary took all of 17.5 minutes, leaving.... much too much time for wieners to roam free.

Turns out that no one wants to eat pizza, when you can chuck things down the slide and see if they break at the bottom. It also turns out that the fun of drinking your lemonade pales in comparison to the fun of pouring down the slide and sliding down in it. Also turns out that the best party game of all (besides chucking things down the slide) is a gem called "who can throw the ball in the road?" Not even the sad, sad perish of a basketball during play could deter them from this one.

Soon they were climbing on top of the swing supports. Their shirts were off and their faces and chests were streaked with watermelon juice and blue frosting. I could hardly bear to join Daddy wiener outside. As I watched out the window it became abundantly clear, what we were dealing with was "Lord of the Flies". I half expected a wiener to run around from the backyard with a boar's head on a spear. It was madness. The maddest thing about all this madness was that I did not understand a single thing about it. This is my life. I am trapped on a deserted island with blue painted wieners in loincloths and I have no idea what to do.

Here's what I did do. I told Daddy wiener that from now on, I would do all (I mean ALL) the prep work for Birthday parties and he can be in charge of all the supervision. I'll be his aide and hide inside whenever possible. I'll watch from afar and welcome my little warriors back into the house with open arms and a washcloth.