Bounce, bounce, bounce!

Yesterday was the day of our first (hopefully annual) homeschooling bouncy castle party! My parents generously let us use their land. Quite a few people came (50+?) but definitely not everyone in our group (75 families). My favorite part was bouncing with three other adults and watching Evie with a 2 year old who LOVES her. I was very impressed with how the kids negotiated each other in the chaos. There were a few accidental injuries, the worst being a split lip but, as one dad remarked, the event was remarkably "tear free." Evie said a kid hit and kicked her on purpose so I went with her to deal with that. The mom is not someone I really know and I don't know her kid at all so it was a little awkward. Had Evie said it was accidental I would have just comforted her and sent her on her way, maybe going over to monitor how many kids were in that bouncer then but instead I felt I needed to say something to the mom and kid. Apprently the other kid didn't know there was a game and some were playing and some weren't--anyway, the whole encounter made me feel kind of oogie. Who just turns around a socks someone in the eye that they don't even know? (Not that it makes sense to hit someone you do know but maybe the kids had negotiated that hitting/fighting was part of the game, I don't know!)

The only other incident I knew about was a case of girls excluding a little boy out of a game. The excluded family mentioned it to me and then later Evie said something about it. She had been in the group of girls and she and another girl didn't like the idea of excluding anyone but went along because of the personality of someone else in the group. This one pisses me off because I know which kids started the "excluding" mentality and the bossiness. I don't think that child was even still there when the "girls exclude the boy" incident happened but I had witnessed the beginning of the bossiness earlier and could see the potential. Arggh! I understand the need and desire to have special groups, in a large party setting I think it is inappropriate and mean to do the excluding thing. Later on Evie and the other hesitant girl invited the excluded boy and sibling to play croquet. They adamantly refused clearly showing their displeasure with the earlier incident. I wanted to say "good for you, stick to your convictions!" I think that is what made Evie tell me about it later.

Anyway, I am rehashing the two minor incidents that clouded our overall fantastic day. It was great, we were tired last night! Off to D.C. tomorrow, sorry for the posting lull again!