Happy Birthday Lucas

Lucas turned five last week. At his school the drill is to bring a photo from each year of his life to share with the class. They also make a trip around the sun (actually a candle) carrying a globe one time for each of their years. So Lucas made five revolutions.

Wednesday isn't the best day for a party, so we postponed 'til Saturday. We did make a flag to fly on his birthdays. It's yellow with his name on it, and it has five candles, we'll add one each year. So it can become a tradition as well as being festive and decorative. Uncle Dave and Aunt Karen came over for dinner and cupcakes. He got gifts in the morning from us, and in the evening from them. But the first words out of his mouth in the morning were "Yea, I'm excited to take pictures to school." not a word about presents, though he did open them right away.

Normally we try to avoid birthday parties. There are a couple of reasons for this. We really don't want a bunch of screaming kids running around the house and we don't want a bunch of presents. There's no way on earth we'll have one at McDonald's, so don't even suggest it. We do like the idea of making it a big day though. In the past we've taken day-trips to the Seattle Aquarium for instance. This year we let him have some input and we decided to stay in town and go to the Jump Around Fun Zone. It's a place with a bunch of inflatable things kids can jump in.

I know what you're thinking. It sounds awful. I fully expected it to be one of the higher levels of hell. Meaning, one of the easier assignments if you are expelled from the Kingdom of Heaven. I don't claim to know for sure, but there has to be worse destinations. There isn't even a fire, let alone demons. I don't know what commandment you'd have to break to end up there. Maybe cussing or jay-walking or some such transgression. Nothing serious. Unlike Chuck E. Cheese's. I assume they save that place for the real degenerates. But I digress.

It really wasn't bad. We invited two of Lucas' friends - Xander and Matthias. Xander's dad came along so I had someone to hang out with, and that made all the difference. He had to bring their other child (Thrace), who like Jack was too young to play for fear of being trampled. I hadn't wanted to bring Jack because I knew he wouldn't be able to play and I didn't want to hold him the whole time. But Kim had bribed him into insisting on coming along so I was stuck. Fortunately Thrace was there, his mother was also being selfish in her time management, xo both little ones had someone to stare at (they really don't interact much). But that was a blessing for their fathers. That's right, blessings in hell.

After jumping through the Zone we invited people over to our house for cake. We let Lucas pick what kind of cake he wanted this year. He chose a Monster Truck. We had one made which was way too big and expensive. Maybe if we had ordered the right size the price would have been reasonable. Instead, like a couple of newlyweds, we have a freezer full of cake. We made him opt for a carrot cake since the other kinds are nearly inedible - for all the sugar in the icing. Though this one, too, had too much icing. Oh well, you only turn five once. And he's only getting a cake like that once. Next year, we'll probably forget and let him choose again.