Little Buddies

Yes, I'm back online. The phone was still off when Rose and I went shopping for our nephew Skylar's birthday around 10...and when we came back from the party around quarter of five, it was back on. Go figure. Turns out I wasn't the only one in the neighborhood who had phone problems, either. Uncle Ken and Dad, my older friend Erica's mom, and several of their neighbors had similar phone problems...and similar problems with the phone company. I hope Verizon's aware that a lot of their customers are not terribly happy with them at the moment. I'm glad they got the phone back on, but did they have to give us such a hard time about it?

Today was pleasant in other ways, too. I ended up having a nice time at Skylar's third birthday party. The party was at a shelter and grill at the Cape May County Park and Zoo - where else would you hold a birthday party for toddlers? Skylar himself was a bit of a pain. He screamed at the top of his lungs for no reason, punched people, ran his mother ragged, kept messing with the birthday cake when his nana repeatedly told him not to, and wouldn't share his new toys with his friends Ronnie and Kaylie.

Ronnie, for his part, couldn't get on the benches. He must have fallen off four times, once very hard on his back. Kaylie was the only one who wasn't really a problem, maybe because she was sort of shy and stuck to her mother and her favorite baby doll for much of the party.

I don't know who brought the water balloons...but my sister Anny (Skylar's mother) probably wasn't too happy with them. For some reason, when everyone started throwing balloons, they were all aimed at her. She was sopping wet by the time the mini-battle was over. Actually, I think Skylar inadvertently started it when he kept throwing the balloons at the ground and someone wanted to show him how to throw them at people...his mommy, of course.

I got some great shots of the battle with an instant camera I'd initially bought for
my vacation...and then joined in. Hey, they were already getting me wet while I took the pictures. I figured if I was going to get wet, I might as well do it with everyone else.

(I also got some nice shots of Skylar blowing a noisemaker over his Bob the Builder-themed cake and getting icing all over it, and Sky's later attempt to lick the icing off. Good thing we were about to eat the cake anyway at that point.)