Monday, November 23, 2009

What Happens at N1S's, Stays at N1S's

It's party time! That's what Lady Di announced to Number One Son last week. LD thought N1S might like to host a get together for a few of his friends on Saturday night. And by night, she meant 3pm to 7pm.

So N1S got his guest list together and invited four friends for food, fun and video games. And as far as N1S was concerned, the fun and the video games were one in the same.

With a stack of pizzas, a tote of chips and a wheel barrow of pop bottles, we seemed adequately prepared for a fun afternoon.

Lady Di set out the snacks while the pizza cooked and set out the Pokeno game for the boys. You may ask, "How can Pokeno possibly compete with the Wii Mario Cart?" The answer is, you play for money.

Now hold on! Before you call child services, we're not running a bawdy, underground gambling house for fifth graders. We just didn't have any good prizes for winning so we used pennies. We only had one boy object based on moral grounds, but he quickly changed his mind and agreed to try gambling just this once. Although, I don't know how you could call it gambling since I was the only one who provided any money. Anyway the Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew and Cheetos went a long way towards buying the boys' reticence to the gaming commission.

The boys played 'four corners, bingo and blackout' and the winner of each game would get a cup of pennies with the intention of counting up at the end of the game to see which boy had the most. Well, towards the end, one boy hadn't won a single game and therefore had an empty cup. When he made this known to the group, two of the other boys just said, "Here, you can have mine.", and dumped their winnings into his cup. Needless to say, by this time the boys were becoming much less interested in pennies and more interested in the pizza smell coming from the oven.

I don't know if we overestimated what five fifth graders could eat, or we set out too many snacks during the game, because the boys only finished off a pizza and a half before diving for the Wii remotes. That left us with about a pizza and a half left. But I won't ever complain about leftovers.

With all of the boys in the house, we didn't want Sweet Pea to feel left out, so one of N1S's guest's sister came to play with her.

They did their best at attacking the pizza too.

The rest of the party was spent playing Mario Cart and Guitar Hero and trying to see who could shout over every one else. I thought a group of fifth grade girls were loud but these boys could keep up with them any day. They were laughing, cheering, joking and each one wanted to outdo the other. And N1S was right in the middle, going along with the group. Readers to this blog will know of some of the challenges N1S has had with friendships and peer interaction. But this night couldn't have gone better. Nobody was teased. All participated. And everyone had fun.

Even though the above picture turned out blurry, it is still my favorite one. One of the most important wishes for a parent of a child with Asperger's is for their child to be included and feel like he really belongs. N1S did well in choosing his friends. I know he won't always fit in everywhere, but the times he does fit in makes my heart swell.

By 7:30pm the parents came to pick up some pretty exhausted and somewhat hoarse kids.

So if you look past the junk food, video games, belching contest and gambling, N1S and Lady Di hosted a pretty good party.

Now Sweet Pea has informed us that she is ready for her girl party.

Time to buy ear plugs.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...
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James (SeattleDad) said...

Sounds like a fun night for the boys.

I would have convinced your spouse that those boys would eat way more pizza than just 3. More leftovers for you that way.

Corrie Howe said...

What great fun! My little ones haven't had "parties" yet. We've had tons of kids over and eating and game playing, but not an official party. Older, teenage son, has had many of these, about once a month. I love them too. I take lots of pictures over the years. His friends are like my own children now. I hope this continues for N1S.

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I'm a 40 year old dad of two. My wonderful wife, Lady Di, and I try to keep the kids from blowing things up here in central Minnesota.