Party Weekend

Quite a birthday weekend. Grandma and grandpa actually stayed for a little while, which was a blast. Followed by a Sunday afternoon birthday party. Since all boys that age seem to be very much into agent and science fiction stories and Karl got just enough Playmobil gear that each and every of his (four) guests could operate one of those heavily armed phantasy vehicles, it was of course tome to attack dad!

Followed by some wholesome snacks in wonderful colors. I heard those birthday party buffets have similar effect at that age as the backstage offerings at Studio 54 just around New Year's eve 1978.

They were surprisingly focused on the puppet show Karl staged with me though.

We had rehearsed an elaborate story about Kasperl (the Bavarian jester hero of classic puppet theater) following the hot trail of Räuber Hotzenplotz (another Bavarian childhood hero),who had robbed the king's treasure. Since Karl really wanted to include his new science fiction agent toys, we settled on Kasperl passing through some portal getting lost in space.

Since puppet shows are kinda pushing the envelope of cool we had come up with some sleazy showbiz trickery - audience participation. Whenever Kasperl had mastered another challenge (and there were many) everybody had to scream "Confusion in space!" at the top of their lungs.

The real killer were Fred's "little monsters" though. Each kid was photographed at the beginning of the party and turned into a cutout monster on a stick, which then had a role in the play. Aaah, vanity starts early. When they figured out that they're actually characters with speaking roles (with really deep monstery voices, which have left me hoarse for now), they really got into it. Of course everybody got to keep their monster cut-out in the end.

The party was topped off with a great round of hit-the-pot. Two very tired boys just faded blissfully into sleep upstairs. Ah, the joys of exhaustion.