The boy was so excited. I finally caved and allowed him to have a birthday party outside of our home. My theory on birthday parties is that they should be fun - and sometimes home is the best place. So we've seen a pizza party where we took small pizza boxes from the local pizza place and walked the invitations inside the boxes to neighborhood friends. We've also done science experiments - mentos and diet coke - complete with safety goggles and a take home science pack. And then there was last year. The year of no party. The birthday that I've been reminded of by the boy - or by my guilt. Yes - I was too busy with work travel to figure it out. So we had a few small things at home - but no party with 6 friends.
This year, when the topic of birthdays came up in February - he asked for some kind of inflatable party. The location is 30 minutes from here and I couldn't do that to the other parents - and I was not about to rent a shuttle bus for 1st graders. We compromised on bowling.
For some it's the stuff of nightmares, and for some, it's the stuff of dreams. I fall somewhere in between. The boy broke 100 and managed to win "high scorer". One of his friends turns out to be a party master extraordinaire - and can dance the chicken dance like no other - and another friend took pictures with her camera. (She's the only one that took pictures - another thing he's reminded me about.)
Picture a bowling alley with 7 parties running at the same time. I did too. So I gave the kids all tye-dyed t-shirts to put on when they got there - so I could track who belonged to our party. The kids loved them and I think it was enough home craftiness for me for a while. Between the strobe lights and the long-playing Stairway to Heaven music I knew the two hours would be really long. Fortunately, pizza, bowling, and the mystical Sprite soda - it was a good time for the kids.
It was only the next day, after the party, that I realized how tired I really was. I'd landed from a long flight back from the west coast early on Friday morning, and had tried to wrangle the house and its contents into some state of not-so-messy and then started on the party stuff in time for Saturday. Did you know just how long it takes to dye t-shirts? I did not. I do now. And I take full credit for the totally groovy patterns on the t-shirts. (Thanks online instructions.)
He's seven, he's happy and he's writing his thank you notes. (I should really have borrowed my sister-in-laws trick/suggestion/cool thing - before her kids can really play with the gifts - they need to write the thank you notes. So that's how it gets done so fast. 5 notes down, 5 to go. Sweet.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Big Boy Bikes and Birthdays
Well, the boy is almost 7 - or will be in a few days. In the impromptu doctor's office visit yesterday - where we discovered he had strep - we also found out he weighs close to 60 pounds. No wonder I can't carry him up the stairs any more.
Threes doses of medicine later and we went in search of his birthday present. A brand new bike in blue, with a helmet color best described as poison dart frog red-green-yellow, and a bell, came home in the back of the car.
Some people cry at graduation and some people cry at weddings. Me, I teared up looking at my husband - who was tearing up looking at the boy. Tearing because this was exactly the scene we have talked about over the past three years - the one where a shiny new seven year old learns how to ride a shiny new bike.
All the more relevant because in my weakest, darkest moments - the ones where I didn't think T would live, I was saddest for the two of them -- that the boy wouldn't have his dad to teach him how to ride a bike. Which, given what was at stake, should have been the least of my worries. But it's odd how at 3 am, when the only other people up are the nurses and first year residents, how clearly your mind can create a movie. It's a movie with a perfect picture - filmed so beautifully you can feel the temperature of the day, the breeze in the air and you know almost to the minute what time it is because the sunlight tells you. My movie had two endings. The first, with T and the boy happily succeeding. The second ending was the one I couldn't get out of my head. It was the one where I was trying to teach him. And the breeze was cold, and I couldn't help him. No thumbs up for that ending.
And it's not that I couldn't have, or can't teach him - but the one thing T is much, much better at than I am - is to give the little guy enough - to let him go.
So in the end of the real movie, T followed while the boy increased his speed with the training wheels - and both of them came home predicting that in the next two weeks the training wheels will be off and the race will be on.
Threes doses of medicine later and we went in search of his birthday present. A brand new bike in blue, with a helmet color best described as poison dart frog red-green-yellow, and a bell, came home in the back of the car.
Some people cry at graduation and some people cry at weddings. Me, I teared up looking at my husband - who was tearing up looking at the boy. Tearing because this was exactly the scene we have talked about over the past three years - the one where a shiny new seven year old learns how to ride a shiny new bike.
All the more relevant because in my weakest, darkest moments - the ones where I didn't think T would live, I was saddest for the two of them -- that the boy wouldn't have his dad to teach him how to ride a bike. Which, given what was at stake, should have been the least of my worries. But it's odd how at 3 am, when the only other people up are the nurses and first year residents, how clearly your mind can create a movie. It's a movie with a perfect picture - filmed so beautifully you can feel the temperature of the day, the breeze in the air and you know almost to the minute what time it is because the sunlight tells you. My movie had two endings. The first, with T and the boy happily succeeding. The second ending was the one I couldn't get out of my head. It was the one where I was trying to teach him. And the breeze was cold, and I couldn't help him. No thumbs up for that ending.
And it's not that I couldn't have, or can't teach him - but the one thing T is much, much better at than I am - is to give the little guy enough - to let him go.
So in the end of the real movie, T followed while the boy increased his speed with the training wheels - and both of them came home predicting that in the next two weeks the training wheels will be off and the race will be on.
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