When the kids are little, they go to little kids' parties. They tumble at the junior gym, they bounce in the bouncy castle. If they're lucky, maybe a comic book hero or a princess drops by.
When the kids are a little bigger, the venues get a little bigger, too. Now they're bowling, playing miniature golf and arcade games.
Then comes laser tag and paintball parties, skateboarding and rock climbing, too: the parties that come with all the scary disclaimers, the parties that require parental signatures.
At a certain point, it hits you. These kids of yours, they're growing up, whether you like it or not.
In the blink of an eye, they're on the Bar and the Bat Mitzvah circuit. They're dressing fancy. They're dancing and sliding across the floor. They're wearing neon necklaces and hats that light up, along with their hormones.
Then come the sweet sixteens, the turning eighteens, the twenty-ones.
And the birthday parties give way to other kinds of parties; the drinking and the I-don't-want-to-know parties. The parties that keep the parents and the neighbors up late at night.
A few years go by, and a few more, and suddenly, the kids are on the wedding circuit. Their friends are getting married. How did that happen? Can anyone please explain?
And maybe one day, if you're lucky... just maybe one day, God willing, you'll be standing right up there next to those kids of yours, as they say their I-Do's.
In my own case, some day soon, kina hora, poo poo poo, the complicated visa process between two governments will wrap up -- when, don't ask, if I knew, I'd tell you -- and a romantic American boychick will marry his French sweetheart, and the SJG will be right there, kvelling, uncontrollably, so ready to party it's ridiculous.
All it takes is patience, a topic I failed in college.
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