I came home from Mac’s swimming lessons to find the kids watching ESPN….Monday Night Football. I’m doing something right.

It’s been crazy busy recently. Exhausting and overwhelming. I’ve been running the kids everywhere, while the father figure holds down the fort with the Youngers. We don’t do much as a whole family these days, but Saturday was quite the family day. A couple of soccer games, a birthday party and a wedding.

The father figure has maintained several friendships despite the circus in which he lives. And so, as people he’s been friends with for over a quarter century get married, he likes to attend. Part of his pleasure in attending comes from being able to show off his children to the various childhood friends and their parents. Why he likes to show them off confuses me, I much more into hunkering down and waiting everything out. And by everything, I mean toddlerhood.

But, I wasn’t in charge of this operation, so off to the wedding we went. It was in a lovely area. As we were walking in I had a sinking feeling that this wasn’t a good idea. For starters, they had breakable dishes on the tables. Along with real table cloths. Furthermore, the ceremony set up indicated it was a small, intimate wedding. All the easier to hear small kiddos, and who wouldn’t want the protestations of small persons to echo through their momentous occasion.

While we weren’t late, which was a first for weddings we’ve attended this year, we weren’t early, which meant we were closer to the front than I would have ever freely chosen. But trying to seat seven persons anywhere does not leave a lot of options, so we sat ourselves down. And waited.

It was a wedding, so it was running late.  Much to the children’s chagrin. Small persons were getting antsy, so when Baby offered to take X-Man over to admire the waterfall and pond just a few feet away from our seats. Against my better judgment, I assented. And so, Baby, Mac and X-Man went off to investigate.  I kept an eye on them, poised for X-Man to leap in.  Sure enough he stopped and prepared to enter the water. Fortuntately he wise chose to remove his clothing before submerging himself. Few things make me move faster than a naked toddler, as I have learned over the weeks.

I reached X-Man before he disrobed, although not before he had mooned the assembled guests. Everyone was restless, and had been observing the children near the water, anticipating something. We do nothing if not enteratain the masses. As the wedding party hadn’t entered yet, the skeptical was enjoyed by all without ruining anything other than my brief calm.

I missed the ceremony as Cinco decided that she should serenade the couple with forlorn songs about be denied the opportunity to observe the water falls due to poor behavior on the part of her brother. I rejoined the family in time to partake in the receiving line, which, due to the forward location of our seats, was towards the end of the group. This resulted in us entering the reception area to see several groups of five taking up tables that sat seven and left us with a table, right smack dab in the center of the room, set for four people.

An open bar makes all sorts of sitting arrangements tolerable. Mac made his peace with the fact that the bride and groom eat first at their wedding. Also, that the hour de overs people never actually made it over to our table, although I’m guessing they weren’t serving goldfish crackers anyway.

Cinco ate her body weight in prime rib; everyone else enjoyed their food, although with small persons on your lap, at a small table, it’s hard to eat your own plate of food. Baba and Baby were restless and offered to take their brothers outside. I quickly agreed. And ate all of six bites before Baba waltzed back in to give me an update “X-Man sort of fell in the water.”

Of course he did.

Sure enough, X-Man was shuffling in behind her. I’m unclear what was meant by “sort of” because the boy was sopping wet. His feet were wet as was his hair. In my book, wet head to toe means you actually totally fell in. No matter how you choose to look at it, the boy left a trail of wet footprints on the hard wood floor. The first party foul of the evening.

I think it says a lot of my state in life that my first thought, on observing my son was “Oh good, his clothes are still on.” It looks like he took the whole “you only live once” approach.