January 3, 2008

My husband is a conservative introvert who is set in his ways. This gives the impression that he's no Mr. Fun. But park a jump house on his front lawn and be prepared to meet his inner side.

My sister and I recently got our families together for a barbecue and rented a jump house. It was the best hundred dollars I spent in a long time. The kids had a great time, but the adults had a blast.

The day started off a bit tense. My husband insisted that the kids not jump for fifteen minutes after they drank something and for thirty minutes after they ate. He didn't want anyone throwing up in the jump house. This never occurred to me. I was thinking to let the kids do whatever and he was thinking about rules, regulations and orderly fashion.

Finally we were on the same page and the rest of the day flowed smoothly...which means I finally got to jump in the jump house. My husband assured me that it provided great entertainment for the ‘adults' sitting in the house, watching out the window.

I invited him in, but he wouldn't budge. There were hamburgers to grill, conversations to be had, rules to impose on the children and various other boring adult things to do, and yet....

He climbed in the jump house out of curiosity, I think. Without a word he slipped out the front door, the rest of the adults unaware. When I found him, he was in the middle of a rousing game of blind man's bluff, circled by a bunch of bouncing children chanting how cool Dad/Uncle Simon is. It was a bit of a surprise to see him stumbling about, bouncing off the walls, breathless with laughter.

"Ahem!"

"I am NOT jumping, Woman, I'm CHASING!" he insisted, as he dove to catch one of the squealing children, but it didn't deter my cheesy grin. He'd been caught having fun.

And according to my husband (the Mr. Rules & Regulations side) we were supposed to pack it up at dusk, but Mr. Fun had emerged and that jump house was bouncing until well past dark.

"I thought we were packing it up."

"It's not that late!" He was the last to emerge from the jump house, losing his balance and rolling onto the grass and into the children.

There's nothing harder than soda to drink at our house but you wouldn't know that by the way my husband staggered into the house - the inevitable result after using muscles that have not been used in decades.

He's been stiff these last few days, but I suspect the pain is more than worth it.