Frank turned six at 8:32am on Saturday. Every year at the exact time of his birth, we go a little crazy . . . yell, scream, sing happy birthday. Frank loves it. And then we talk about what we remember about the day he was born. If we ever forget what we remember, Frank will remind us, because he remembers everything we ever told him.
We had a great morning. We were already well-prepared for his party, and got to take our time and just hang out. We let Frank open his presents right after the big “exact time of his birth” celebration. He got lots of cool stuff including ramps so he can do jumps with his bike and skateboard . . . and a leopard gecko. I’ve grown a lot in six years. It would’ve been unfathomable to me had anyone told me even a year ago that I would allow either on his sixth birthday.
I still can’t touch the lizard, but at least I’ve allowed it in the house. Doug says it should really live on the workbench in the garage, which I suppose I could live with better. Although I might not remember to do everything one has to do when they have a leopard gecko every morning and every night--which, of course, always seems to become Mom’s responsibility even with the countless reassurances that the son will take care of the pet himself. Yeah right.
Frank also got a mini-bike. Or rather a photo of a mini-bike. The Razor Dirt Rocket MX350 itself will arrive sometime mid-July. It's very small. And electric. And can’t go over 12mph. And I guess it’s a good way for him to get started. I do want Frank to enjoy his childhood, and be real and have fun and great memories . . . and I guess if I’m too overprotective there will be an awful lot he'll miss out on. I’m also aware that often, and this definitely was true of my childhood, we say no because whatever it is may be moderately inconvenient, when in actuality there isn’t a good reason not to say yes.
Frank’s party was great fun. It was a backwards party. Everyone wore their clothes inside out, and one of our friends, Coach David, even arrived with his pants and shirt on backwards. He did change about five minutes after he got here, mumbling something about it hurting as he went into the house. I would I imagine it would given the fact he wore jean shorts with a zipper and all.
The schedule for the party was entirely backwards. Frank had great fun giving everyone their goody bag as they arrived and saying “thank you for coming, good-bye!” And then saying hello when it was time to leave. We also opened presents first, followed by cake, then pizza. I didn’t expect ANY of the kids to eat pizza. But they all did. Goes to show you, having dessert first doesn’t necessarily mean kids won’t eat their dinner. . .
Probably the nicest thing about it was, then everyone relaxed. There is a certain edge to birthday parties. After about an hour or so, each of the adults at the party has a look on their face, it’s sort of a dazed look, and each and every one of them is thinking, I wish they’d hurry up and open presents and do the cake so we can leave. If the party reaches the two hour point without either happening, the adults get visibly cranky. Five minutes after the two hour point, they reach their limit and usually ask the host or hostess WHEN they are going to do the presents and/or cake. And it isn’t that nice a tone of voice they ask in.
Having cake and presents done with, our guests actually stayed a little longer, there wasn’t that definitive cut-off time right after gift opening.
Around 4:00 when the party was finally kaput and clean-up finished, we sat around in the garage with CJ and Janel and watched Frank and Beckett play. Doug said he wanted to take Frank to Speedway that night and CJ chimed in that he wanted to go. And then I chimed in that I wanted to go. The only trouble was we didn’t have a babysitter for Beck, and there was no way I was going to take him along. CJ made a couple of calls to friends, who weren’t available and I did the same. Finally it dawned on me that the boy who lives behind us was of more-than-babysitting age and I thought I had heard his mother mention he was doing a lot of it. I called, he was, he wanted to, in fact was ready to jump the fence to get started. A couple of hours later he arrived, when we needed him to, and he watched Beck. And at $4 an hour I am jumping for joy that we have one more economical babysitter on our roster, AND he lives right behind us. He was great with Beck and we’ll use him again, particularly when Maizzie, our (and Frank’s) favorite, isn’t available.
Speedway was fun, albeit cold. We all wished we had bundled up a little better and I ended up buying Frank a sweatshirt. There were twenty-seven motorcycle races we had to sit through to get to the “main event” which was freestyle motocross jumping. After about three hours, the main event finally took place. The team started one by one going up the ramp, flying ninety feet through the air over a mound of dirt and doing tricks while in mid-air. Each of the riders made it through the first set of jumps. About the third or fourth rider in the second series of jumps went up the ramp, and suddenly in mid-air he and his motorcycle separated. I don’t know how far of a fall it was, but far enough that it could’ve killed him I suppose. He suffered a broken leg and possibly a broken neck, but we haven’t been able to confirm that.
Frank, surprisingly, wasn’t too freaked out about it. Although he didn’t want to talk about it after we left. CJ and Janel told us in the all the events similar to this that they had attended through the years, which was a considerable number, nothing like that had ever happened. They said they had seen it on videos, but never seen it actually happen. It was wild and scary and disconcerting. And makes that “it’s never going to happen to me” thing become more and more unrealistic. Given how kids always think they’re invincible, witnessing extreme sports, I’m sure, ups overall accident rates considerably.
Janel has been working very long hours at her summer job and really misses Frank and Beck, so asked us if we wanted to go the beach the next day. We were definitely up for that and ended up having a fantastic day on Sunday. We, the six of us, are a family, even though Janel and CJ work for us. They love our kids as if they were their own, and what more could parents ask for, particularly since I have no siblings and we don’t see Doug’s that often.
We spent a quiet evening at home, not feeling the need to do anything more than unpack the beach stuff and get a good night’s sleep.
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