Highway to Hell

"As Genghis Khan once said, 'The more, the merrier.'" This is a line spoken by Jon Voight in the blockbuster hit, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, which stars, unfortunately for them and for their acting careers, Jon Voight and Scott Baio. However, I can assure you that more is not always necessarily merrier.

If any of you reading this have had the great displeasure of watching this movie, which is nothing less than awful, I would like to offer my condolences. This movie was picked out by my now nine-year-old son, who, along with four other boys, watched it during a birthday slumber party last night at our house.

My weekend began simply enough yesterday morning with my daughter, who'd been cast as a model in a fashion show benefiting a local charity. We traveled from that fashion show, which began at 10:30 a.m. and lasted until about 2:30 p.m., to my son's Cub Scouts Blue and Gold celebration, which began at 3:30 and lasted until 5:30. My three-year-old daughter and I left that celebration early in order to make it to a 5:30 p.m. birthday party at Gymboree.

I have to admit, it tires me just to think about all of this, but I'm sure it cannot match the horrors that my husband endured as he tried to tame four boys who showed up at our house after the Blue and Gold in order to help celebrate my son's ninth birthday. My husband was to take them to Burger King for dinner (gag), followed by the movie theater to watch Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and then back to our house for cake and ice cream and (horror of all horrors) a slumber party, during which the boys viewed Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. Eek!

As I listened to the one-, two-, three- and four-year-olds sing their goodbye song at Gymboree, and watched the birthday girl clutch Gymbo the clown tightly, I received a text message from my husband, who was by that time sitting in the movie theater watching Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

"They are going to Hades and the song playing is 'Highway to Hell.'"

I giggled, thinking to myself how appropriate that song would be if it were to have been playing in the hallway as one entered the Gymboree.

I found out yesterday that they charge 50 cents for socks at Gymboree, which you must wear if you are to enter the play area with the kids. (I was wearing knee-highs, which the lady at the front desk told me were not appropriate for the play area, and incidentally, one must go through the play area in order to enter the bathroom, which my daughter had to use twice, and I of course had to assist my daughter. One must also wear socks in the party room, where pizza and cake were served up, post-party.)

After the party ended, I drove my daughter to Party City to pick up a few items for my son's birthday party, and then drove back to my house. I walked across the street to the neighbors' house, dropped off my daughter (their son was participating in the birthday party, and she'd suggested that my daughter stay with their daughter that night), and then ran quickly back to my house to hang up the decorations I'd bought at Party City and put together goodie bags.

I worked quickly, and when I finished, I went back over to the neighbors' house, where I drank wine and played Rock Band, all the while feeling sorry for my husband of course, until I received an ominous phone call.

"We're at home and ready to blow out the candles on this cake," my husband told me. This was my cue to leave the neighbors' house.

I excused myself from Rock Band and walked slowly across the street, half afraid of what I might find. When I entered my house I found what reminded me of an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Hyenas laughed, while a herd of elephants raged upstairs. I became very, very tired.

We sang Happy Birthday to my son for the second time in a month (his actual birthday was on Feb. 6, but a snow storm prevented us from celebrating with his friends on that evening), he blew out the candles on his cake, and after cake was distributed and I ate a piece (I think I swallowed it whole) I excused myself again to leave "the boys" to their own devices, heading once again back across the street to finish my game of Rock Band.

I finally left the neighbors' house for the evening around midnight, and as I walked across the street I was sure I could hear a funeral dirge.

To my amazement, when I entered the house, what had been a safari had returned somewhat to normal. The children all laid motionless in their sleeping bags in the living room, save for an arm occasionally reaching into a bowl of popcorn, and I could hear Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 playing in the background. I told the boys goodnight and retreated to my bedroom, feeling somewhat guilty about leaving my husband to fend for himself, until about 6:30 the following morning, when Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom began again, and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 blared from the television.

Around 10 o'clock, when all of the children had finally gone home and I retrieved my daughter from the neighbors' house, my husband told me, "I promised our son I would take him to the Lego store at the mall today."

You have got to be kidding me.