Pinatas for Dummies

Step One: Give in to your son's request to have a pinata for his birthday party. Do this because he's been asking for a pinata since he was two years old, and you've never gotten one.

Step Two: Since your son wants his party to be a Bakugan-themed party, and there aren't any Bakugan pinatas hanging around town - just weird donkey and high-heel ones - resolve to try to make your own Bakugan pinata.

Step Three: Thank your lucky stars that, when Bakugans are in their closed position, they are shaped like a ball.

Step Four: Look online for hours and hours, learning how to make your own pinata.

Step Five: Try to find one of those punching-bag balloons - those are supposed to be the perfect shape for making a nice, round pinata.

Step Six: Have a mom who is a genius for finding things like punching-bag balloons. Thank her when she shows up on your doorstep with a bag of them.

Step Seven: Have parents who have a nice, big newspaper recycling bin in their garage. Raid their bin for newspapers to use in your pinata-making adventure.

Step Eight: Find a suggestion online that you could buy a basketball, soccerball, or baseball-shaped pinata and spray paint it the color you want.

Step Nine: Hear angels singing as that idea really, really appeals to you.

Step Ten: Find a baseball pinata at a local party store for a pretty good price.

Step Eleven: Put the punch-bag balloons into the gift bag with the legos for Dylan's friend's birthday party, because you really don't want your children to be tempted into punching the punch-bag balloons into each others' faces. You know your children oh, too well. You'd rather Dylan's friend's mom deal with that temptation with her own kids. Mwahahaha.

Step Twelve: Spray paint the pinata red, because the main bakugan in Vestroia (the Bakugan world that becomes one with Earth when the bad bakugan, Nag, steals the Something Core from Vestroia, causing imbalance. Or something like that) is red. His name is Drago.

Step Thirteen: Get red spray paint all over your fingers. Your daughter cries and worries because she thinks it's blood. Comfort her.

Step Fourteen: Try to get off spray paint with soap and water. Realize that it's there for good. Realize that it's also uncomfortably sticky. Try to use fingernail polish remover, to no avail.

Step Fifteen: Call your husband and ask what gets spray paint off of fingers. He says to use the paint thinner downstairs that's with his tools.

Step Sixteen: Put paint thinner on your fingers and feel very satisfied with the result. Feel guilty that you like the smell of paint thinner so much.

Step Seventeen: Start rigging up the wet bakugan pinata to the basketball hoop in the backyard to dry. Listen to your son's suggestion to hang it inside, because it's supposed to rain.

Step Eighteen: Hang the pinata inside for about five minutes, then realize that it's a REALLY bad idea. Put it back outside and hope for no rain. Feel guilty that you like the smell of spray paint so much.

Step Nineteen: Let it dry for a day or so.

Step Twenty: Study Dylan's Drago bakugan and draw the outlines of similar markings on your pinata with a permanent marker. Dylan can paint inside the lines you've made for him.

Step Twenty-One: Listen to Dylan's complaints that the markings don't look the same as his bakugan. Tell him to stick it.

Step Twenty-Two: Watch your husband draw "better" markings on the pinata with the permanent marker. Roll your eyes.

Step Twenty-Three: Borrow some acrylic paint from your mom, a.k.a. The Woman Who Has Anything You Might Ever Need.

Step Twenty-Four: Realize that your mom doesn't have orange acrylic paint. Try to mix the red and the yellow.

Step Twenty-Five: Realize that all you've made is a pinkish color. Go to the craft store to get some orange acrylic paint.

Step Twenty-Six: Buy the paint, but then get distracted and buy some other things you really, really want, plus candy for all three kids.

Step Twenty-Seven: Get yelled at for spending too much money at the craft store.

Step Twenty-Eight: Have Dylan paint the markings on the pinata:

Step Twenty-Nine: Notice that your homemade haircut on Dylan looks really, really, really bad. Vow to take him to Great Clips from here on out. No matter what.

Step Thirty: Let the acrylic paint dry. Which takes about two seconds.

Step Thirty-One: Get candy at the store.

Step Thirty-Two: Get yelled at for getting candy at the store. Tell your husband to stick it.

Step Thirty-Three: Let Dylan, Sadie, and Breckyn fill up the pinata:

Step Thirty-Four: Pause and mourn over Dylan's horrible haircut once again.

Step Thirty-Five: Completely forget to do the pinata part of Dylan's birthday party. Realize it when the party has been over for half an hour.

Step Thirty-Six: Because most of the guests are still hanging out at your house after the party is over, hurry and have your husband rig up the pinata.

Step Thirty-Seven: Do the whole blindfold thing, spin them around three times thing. Cringe as you put the blindfold on the head of the really, really sweaty Nappy Neighbor boy. Wonder if you should keep tying the now-wet towel around other kids' heads. Vomit in your mouth a little.

Step Thirty-Eight: Almost get hit about fifteen times with a baseball bat as various kids try to hit the pinata.

Step Thirty-Nine: After roughly seventy-five hits, the pinata won't break. Your friend, April, tells you that pinatas should only be filled about two-thirds full so that they will break. Go, "Ohhhhhh, so that's why...."

Step Forty: Ask your hubs to get the bat and just hit that sucker as hard as he can.

Step Forty-One: Keep reminding the anxious little guests to watch out for the swinging bat. Just about have a heart attack when several of them get wayyy too close.

Step Forty-Two: After getting about seven really hard hits by a large man, the pinata will finally break open.

Step Forty-Three: Smile, gratified, knowing that you finally helped your son's pinata dreams come true.