A golden birthday

A golden birthday, I learned from a friend, is when your age matches the date of your birthday. So it was one for Jon, turning 9 on the 9th.

But now, the birthday boy said he couldn't see what was so "golden" about it, so here goes some saner moments (sans tears and tantrums) on that day I thought had made it a fairly good one:

Jon tucking into some barbecued ribs, when we ate out late that schoolnight...

And when yet another of my simple, "out-of-the-box" (a boxed cakemix, that is) birthday bakes became fodder for laughs at the end of another long day. See, I'd quite forgotten it was a brownie, not a cake cake, and left it to chill in the fridge. By the time we got back after dinner, Jon had to try and do a "hai-yah!" for the cake-cutting!


Otherwise, the brownie I'd topped with a basic melted-butter-and-semisweet choc frosting was rather tasty -- when allowed to thaw out some. And the fall-coloured sprinkles (happened to have them handy) plus the skittles Jon added on, did give it a certain glow, no?

Especially given the circumstances -- Vern had just come home from being away; he was exhausted, and so was I, dog-tired from the long weekend on my own with the children. But indulgence is what many of us parents are fond of. And the daddy, not just me, did also oblige the son with the meal outside, even though Vern had rested only less than the time he'd spent travelling back and returned to work.

These calm, friendly shots don't give a very accurate picture of how the rambunctious and unruly kids wore me out. At their friendliest playing together, the two not-so-little monkeys were jumping on the bed, using pillow cases as potato sacks -- but with the pillows still in them, and the littlest one at her fearless stage was running back and forth with nary a thought that she might accidentally hurl herself over the edge!

I was going to keep this short, so let me just wrap up with these wishes for Jon: I pray that these tween years will be a wonderful time growing up, and he'll learn to make good choices, not just appreciate the good things in life.

My thoughts on this "phase": it's exciting, no doubt, but challenging, too, because of the growing going on and even more independent thinking. Different incidents, including some jaw-dropping ones (I kid you not), let me see it's so much easier said than done for us to expect our children to "ought to know better" what to do or not, but they do the complete opposite. And I realized, oh no, there's still so much to try and teach them, and so much I need to learn, too. Also, it's one thing to indulge them, and another when I over-do it with the giving in and doing everything for them -- it can do more harm than good. But the battles to pick are the ones to do with values and principles, and thinking about the good of others besides our own, and yes, the golden rule, too. Those are what's worth fighting for.