Clowns are Cool

Well we did it.
We survived birthday party number 7.
Peter Piper literally did all the work. Which was fantastically amazing unusual for me. Michael and his friends had a blast playing video games to their hearts content.
There was a face painter (oops... excuse me... artist) there that painted all the kids faces. Since it was Michael's birthday, he got to pick two.
As you can see from the photo, Michael chose to have the hulk "tattooed" on his arm and a pirate for his face. Let me just tell you this... it was a horrific experience trying to convince him that he could not keep the half smeared pirate on his face until school the next morning. He insisted it was too cool to remove. I insisted I would not have the "dirty kid". He insisted that smeared and streaked pirate paintings would be the "awesomest" (yes, that is the exact term he used) thing his first grade class had ever seen. I insisted that I would not have the "dirty kid".
In the end I won this small battle of "dirty" vs. "clean".
In addition to the face painter on premises, Michael's grandmother decided to hire a balloon animal making clown to attend the festivities. I'll be totally honest here... I thought this to be a terrible idea. I was absolutely certain that a group of 6 and 7 year olds would have little to no interest in a clown that makes balloon animals. I was actually a little concerned that this might be construed as the lamest thing ever uncool. The day of the party, I actually began to feel a bit anxious about whether this whole clown thing was a good idea. Okay... I'm possibly leaving out one small detail. I'm possibly leaving out the fact that, frankly, I'm not so fond of clowns myself. I'm not one with an actual fear of clowns... they just make me a little uncomfortable.
This was all a surprise to Michael. When the time came and the clown arrived, I felt my stomach drop a little. First, he entered Peter Piper in all his glory, honking away on his noise making honking thing. Oh no, I thought, this is not going to be Michael's thing. I really kept saying to myself over and over, "Please don't let Michael's friends make fun of him for this. Please don't let Michael's friends make fun of him for this." Well, with all of the honking and commotion, the kids come running over and surround the clown. First, he was not the most attractive clown I'd ever seen. He was real dry in his humor, which was entertaining since only the adults really understood his jokes. Here he his...But then he started making some of the 15,604 different balloon animals/objects in his repertoire.
Things like this. The pink panther playing a sax.



Or this. A rhino riding a motorcycle.

And this super sweet pirates hat on Michael's grandfathers head.

I learned two valuable lessons from the now infamous clown incident of 09.

1. Clowns are not that bad.

2. Clowns are definitely still really exciting to 1st graders. (yes... I admit it... Michael's grandmother was right about this one.)

What we wound up with was a pretty cool clown...
and a very happy birthday boy!