I took the kids today to Jump and Jive. It's this place that has nothing but bouncers all over. You pay $7, then let your kids run hog wild. I love it. It's the best place in the world to let your kids get pooped out. When you got high-energy kids, you do what works.

We have relatives in town, so the kid population at our house jumped from 3 to 6. Total Chaos. Jump and Jive beckoned, and we went. Avery has never been there, but since my mother was too busy to babysit, and my husband was on the golf course, I decided to let her go. I mean - she's 17 months old. I can't just let her stay at home by herself. Well, I could, but then CPS gets all involved and it could get messy. Anyhoo, she got to go and she absolutely loved it. She loved it so much, and she got to laughing so hard, a booger shot out of her nose. I stood there for a second, marveling at the size of it, when I realized I had run out of the house without any Kleenex, and my child was about to snack… EWWWW!! I looked around, but of course there were no tissues to be seen.

Now really. This is an issue that I will have to take up with their management. Obviously – this is a business who caters to kids. Kids equal boogers, and tissues should be a necessity. But since I was stuck there with no tissue, and a kid who was about to EAT the booger, I did what any desperate mother would do. I took the booger from her. With my hands. Double yuck. Now I have this glob stuck to my finger and what the hell am I going to do with it? Meanwhile – Avery was looking at me, and the expression on her face was – “Hey… you gonna eat that booger?? Cause I will if you won’t!” I had to get rid of it. I just HAD to! Besides, there was a commotion going on in the corner where coincidently, was the last place that I had seen Ethan. But there was still the matter of the booger. Using my Motherly improvisation skills, I wiped that bad boy in my pocket, grabbed the baby and trotted to the corner.

Standing in the middle of a circle of men, was a crying boy about 7 years old, my older daughter looked pissed off, and Ethan… who was gleefully receiving high fives from the guys. I walked to the center and just looked at the scene. One of the men filled me in on the story. From what I gather, the crying boy had been pestering Ashton. She was trying to jump away from him, but he kept jumping around her until she fell and he jumped on her. Apparently – this little boy had been pestering lots of kids there, so the parents of all the little ones had been keeping him on their radar. One of the parents helped Ashy up, and she went to a different bouncer and was playing when that little boy appeared and executed a body slam on my daughter.

From what the men say – there was a little blur wearing a Hawaiian Print Mickey Mouse shirt, that shot into the bouncer and knocked that kid down. Next thing they knew, the boy was crying, and my son was standing over him with his finger in his face yelling “THAT’S MY SISTER!! YOU HURT MY SISTER!”

The men were giving him high fives and explaining to me that I should not tell him some pansy story about not hitting other kids. Ashton pushed into the circle and grabbed him into a hug. I was so very proud of her. Usually, those two fight each other. I guess it’s okay for Ethan to smack her, but not some other kid.

We decided it was time to go and began retrieving shoes. Ashton declared that she was DYING of thirst and asked me for some money. I said, “Yeah, I’ve got a dollar, let me finish tying Ethan’s shoes…” but that’s as far as I got. Ashton decided she didn’t want to wait, and jammed her hand in my pocket looking for the dollar.

Guess what she found.

I swore to her that it wasn’t mine, but she still thinks I’m the grossest mommy in the world.


***hey - any of you guys with StatCounter, does your counter show that ABSOLUTELY NO ONE has visited your blog today? Or does this blog suck that bad?