replace that toy box with an amp and my living room with a bar and you've got my senior year in college.

Last Saturday we held our annual holiday gathering. We invited the usual suspects, old friends from college, a handful of my marketing cohorts, friends from church. We also invited a few of our new friends from our central ohio families with children from china group. Some old friends couldn't make it, some marketing cohorts had sick little ones, and before you know it we had a brand new party on our hands. Our home was filled with the sounds of children racing up and down the stairs from the toy box in the living room to the toy box in Matthew's room. Christmas music played in the kitchen and parents chatted with each other while keeping watch over little ones. Matthew's play kitchen became a restaurant  with crazy "soup nazi" type servers, cute little girls in party dresses forcing trays of plastic peas and hot dogs on party guests. Actually, one served while the other chased after her shouting that the meal was not yet cooked and must be brought back to the kitchen immediately. His train set appeared and soon one red head and two black haired heads were bent over the track pieces, deep in a discussion of the best way to set it up. Every so often a daddy would jump in with his two cents.
Little cars and trucks were pushed around the kitchen and at one point a full fledged football game appeared to be in process in the living room, with my son pitted against a friend of ours from church. An adult friend of ours... I finally had to hide the football or my little guy never would have let our friend sit down again.
Towards the end of the evening, which was a tad earlier than usual due to the young crowd, I spotted my young son, sporting his KISS t-shirt, standing on top of his toy box with his play microphone up to his mouth, other hand in the air, finger pointed to the sky, yelling "Rock and Roll!" It doesn't seem so long ago that I remember my friend's pulling similar stunts. Replace that toy box with an amp and my living room with a bar and you've got my senior year in college.
I remember parties when I was younger where my guests might spill a little beer on the floor as they partied the night away. This year we had a few minor juice box incidents instead. After the alcoholic soaked party days we moved into the wine and board game phase, which has now been replaced with candy land and uno. I worked my way from kitchen to living room and back throughout the night, stepping over little ones playing on the floor, occasionally stopping to right a toddler or refill a drink. It was a totally different party for us, and I loved every minute of it.