Happy Birthday Number 8
Greetings to everyone.
Today, Xavier turned eight years old. Where has the time gone?
Xavier has been anticipating his birthday and his party, which is this coming Saturday. A few weeks back, Xavier came home from school, gathered up markers and some construction paper, and started writing out invitations to give to his friends at school.
Apparently, in his mind, Rebecca was not moving fast enough in getting the invitations out. I think Xavier was concerned no one was going to know about his party, and he really wanted his friends to come over.
Well, the invitations did go out. It took some time this year, but many at last responded. Looks in the neighborhood of about nine kids. That will make for a nice party.
A few days ago, Xavier mentioned opening his presents. All the ones from family have been sitting on the hearth and wrapped these past several days.
"You'll have to wait until Saturday," I teased him.
At this point Xavier informed me with some unshakable confidence that he gets to open presents from family on his birthday.
Of course, that is what we did, though he had to wait until after super (of which he had to eat it all).
His Aunt Kathy flew in from Phoenix as part of his birthday. She is here a week, which tickles Xavier no end. She arrived Tuesday, and really was his first present. He has looked forward to her arrival for months.
After dinner, we headed out to open presents. Xavier was excited.
A few weeks ago, Xavier spent the afternoon with friends. One of the boys introduced him to Battleship Advanced, an electronic variant of the classic game Battleship. Xavier wanted one badly, and we heard about it frequently these past few weeks.
Perhaps someone will give it to you for your birthday, we often answered. And, sure enough, Grandma Penny did. (I wonder how she knew).
He was elated when he opened that gift, the first he opened. Rebecca and I thought (erroneously it turns out) that the later gifts would eclipse the Battleship game.
This year, we thought our "themed" gifts would beat any gift from others. Several of the family coordinated various Estes Rocket items. Rebecca and I got several items and both grandpas provided other items, ending up with Xavier having everything he needed to enjoy launching a rocket.
I introduced him to the idea of rockets several months ago. We watched them on YouTube videos, and Xavier got really excited about them. "I want to get one of those!" he informed me with dilated pupils and and ear to ear grin.
Bingo I thought. Birthday presents.
We saved the rockets to the end. The gifts were staged to build up to the big rocket kit. He opened the package with the glues, wadding and engines first (after all, some assembly is required). The idea was to get him to anticipate what might be in that "last package."
The next package was the remote launcher, followed by the launch pad, followed at last by the "big" rocket.
Alas, though excited by them, they did not eclipse the Battleship Advanced game. In fact, after opening everything, he spent the rest of the evening setting up and playing Battleship.
We'll see if Battleship still holds its own against the rockets once he launches one of his rockets!
Xavier's official cake is still in pieces and will be assembled and presented Saturday at his party.
However, we still bought a small cake to celebrate with him tonight. After the presents were opened, and we pulled him away from Battleship, we sang Happy Birthday and let him blow out his eight candles.
With all the crazy this past year, his official cake will have a sparkler on it rather than him blowing out candles on it. That, we think, will alleviate any concerns parents might have of having cake slices get "infected" with the virus.
Tonight's cake was the cake he could spread his birthday spittle across as he blew out his candles in the traditional manner.