Joshua's 7th Birthday

Early Friday morning I climbed the creaky stairs to Joshua's room, where, not surprisingly, he was already awake, laying in bed listening to one of his Your Story Hour favorites.

I turned off his tape and crawled in next to him on his bed. I told him the story of the day he was born in the kitchen, early, early in the morning when it was still dark like this. I told him what he was like when he was 2 and had a yellow fuzzy blankie that he'd pick the fuzzies off of and roll them in a ball under his nose while he sucked his thumb.

And I told him he still needed to go to school. Which he was pretty much okay with since he got to take all those pretty blue cupcakes to give to his friends. All 61 of them.



We got up, had breakfast and got ready for school with the added bustle and excitement of knowing it was Big Brother's BIRTHDAY! The night before I'd enlisted Colby's help to figure out how all 5 dozen cupcakes were going to be transported in the same car with 4 kids. Not an easy task. His super great idea? The wrapping paper bin! Sweet! I quickly rummaged it out from under the wardrobe in our room, dumped out the wrapping paper and took a look.

It was nice and flat, 2 ft. long and had a lid. It looked like it would fit about a hundred cupcakes in it! Until I started placing them ever so gingerly onto the paper lining and discovered it only held about 40. Hmm.. The rest went into a gift box.

The next morning during all of the rush to get ready for school and in the car on time, I thought it would be no problem at all to open the back hatch of my suv and carefully place the box right in the back. While Colby held the baby and the kids sat at the table eating their breakfast, I ran out into the snow to open up the back of the car and clean out the junk to make room for the cupcakes. A great big armload of junk later and I was ready to carry the big bin out.


I placed it carefully on the floor, making sure not to tip them together, and slowly lowered the hatch down over them.

But it didn't shut.

Not even close.

I left the cupcake bin precariously balanced there and ran in the house.

"It doesn't FIT!!", I croaked out to Colby.

"Did you fold the seat down?", he asked calmly.

Out I ran, back into the snowy pre-dawn darkness. I gingerly placed the bin on the ground and folded down one half of the split back seat. Hmm. Looked a little... Sloped.

I tried placing the bin on the folded down seat but my cupcakes started sliding down the hill and running into each other.

"Aaaack!!!", I shrieked as I pulled them back off the seat and returned them to the snowy ground. Back in the house I ran.

"It's not working!", I yelled through the kitchen to where Colby still sat in the living room calmly watching the morning news.

"Did you fold the seat up?", he asked.

"Fold the seat UP? No, I just folded the seat DOWN!", I replied, confused.

"I'll come out in a minute and straighten it out for you.", he said, still sitting calmly in his seat.

I glared at him for a minute from the rug in the kitchen where my snowy boots dripped.

"Fold the seat down, fold the seat up, can't I just take the seat OUT for heaven's sake?", I muttered as I turned back around to go outside. I had cupcakes outside on the GROUND. I couldn't just leave cupcakes on the ground, people.

The kids by this time were done with breakfast and had taken up running through the house like they'd already had the inevitable birthday sugar rush. Two of them were still barefoot, only one had had their hair combed, and coats hadn't even been thought of.

I dashed back out to the car and tried to figure out how exactly the seat was supposed to "fold up". There are about 5 levers on the back and under the seat in question, and none of them are printed with detailed instructions on what function each performs. A few bad guesses later and I'd figured it out, folded the seat up, and finally slid the cupcake bin into place. It didn't look very promising. It looked like it STILL wasn't going to fit.

My husband walked around the back of the car to find me standing in the snow wringing my hands. He screwed up his eyebrows at me for a second, then eyed up the bin, the hatch, and the location of the latching mechanism.

"It doesn't fit! It's not going to close!", I wailed.

At that, he reached up, grabbed the hatch and gave it a good downward fling.

SNAP! It latched.

"There you go!", he said as he strolled away.

I opened up the window and looked down inside. Sure, the lid was buckled up just slightly, but the cupcakes were all safely inside. I placed the other box on top and quickly scrambled to get the rest of the crew in the car and on our way.

Joshua got to sit in the front of the car, which was a first for him.

"Mom", he said, "I'd like to ride in the front of the car from now on, please."

"Sorry, son, you have to go back to riding in your seat in the back after this ride."

"Why?"

"Because it's always safer for little kids to ride in the back of the car, not the front."

"Mom. I'm NOT a little kid anymore. I'm SEVEN. I'm a big kid!"

*sigh*


Yep, son, you are a big kid now. I'm not sure exactly when that happened.

I am so proud of you and the young man you are becoming.

Just... slow down a bit, okay?


His big gift - a lego pirate ship like Daddy's.