Today was Bug’s 8th birthday!
There’s the part of me who is thrilled he’s getting more capable and independent every year, being one of “those” parents who did a little dance of celebration when the kids learned to buckle themselves into their car seats without my help, learned to take showers without assistance and learned to find their own snacks in our overstuffed pantry on their own. Then, there’s the part of me who never wants him to quit asking me to sing him Otis Redding lullabies, make him homemade waffles or rub his sweet little back when he’s not feeling well. While I don’t miss the days of temper tantrums and diapers, I’m feeling overwhelmed with conversations he initiates about grown-up things, like why the fuzz on his legs (and “other” areas) doesn’t wash off in the bath!
All in all, most days it’s almost impossible for me to comprehend the fact my baby is not really a baby anymore and I wonder if I’ll forever feel that way.
Sigh.
In any case, today was a great day!
It all started with Bug nudging me at 6:30am, asking when he could open his presents. He was talking in such a hushed-whisper-sing-song-voice, it sounded borderline freakish after I'd only had 6 hours of sleep. Those of you who’ve ever lived with me fully understand unless I get 9 hours or more, I’m almost unbearable to deal with, so it took all I could muster up not to turn vicious really quickly. But, it was his BIRTHday! So, I kept my grump to myself.
As I desperately tried to pry my eyes open, I silently wished we’d let him open them when he’d asked at 12:01 last night, after he stayed up until midnight so he could “be awake when his birthday started”. It’s not like I sleep in often, but the morning before he'd gotten me up at 7:30 to jump on the trampoline with him. Of course, I complied since it was his early birthday present and because it really IS very fun. EVEN in your nightgown. EVEN when you accidentally pee a little during the first jump because you're still half-asleep and zombie walked outside, forgetting to hit the potty after waking up.
Needless to say, after two early morning wake-ups, I was feeling a little as if I were trapped in an odd suburban mother version of the Groundhog Day movie, starring a strange little whispering kid who wakes me up every morning in a freaky sing-song-hushed-voice at the break of dawn, asking me to “play”. Ugh.
For a few moments I tried to “play dead”, like I was too asleep to even hear his pleas. But, then he whisper-asked me if our giant-60-pound-blind-in-one-eye-Wiener dog, Zoe was still alive. He’d prayed the night before that God wouldn’t let her die on his birthday, after convincing himself she was on her last leg in life. The truth is, she’s basically a million years old and Bug is notorious for sensing death, ghosts and other things I’m not 100% sure I believe in but am too much of a chicken to ignore. So, when he asked whether she was breathing, I immediately jumped out of bed, ran to her side...and...found her completely healthy, wagging her tail and likely laughing at me for being such an idiot.
The funny thing is, I’m pretty sure Zoe is going to live at least a few more years but we all have this disturbing obsession with chronically checking to see if she’s among the living. I thought we were strange to behave in this way, but the last time Bug’s friend stayed all night with us, even he questioned over and over again if she was alive. I think he too was waiting for her to kick over dead at any moment. She does have a habit of laying REALLY, REALLY still, with her eyes open, looking about half-dead. Of course, you’d think after ten years we wouldn’t fall for her “dead act” any longer. But, Nope. We fall for it. Every. Single. Time.
Anyhow...
Even though I did jump out of bed earlier than should be legal on a weekend morning, I did manage to distract Bug from present-opening and entertain him with more pajama trampoline jumping and homemade chocolate chip waffles for a few hours until Hubbit woke up. Why? Because I am an AWESOME wife who lets her husband sleep in as often as possible. THAT’S why! ;)
(Side note: I should probably confess, it is a only a tiny act of gratitude for a man who puts up with my endless batch of crazy and BELIEVE ME…I am capable of some intense ridiculousness.)
After presents were opened, Bug wanted to play his new Diary of a Wimpy Kid board game. (If you haven’t seen the movie or read the books…do it. NOW.) At certain points in the game, players are required to write down their answers to questions on scrap paper and then guess what other players have written.
The first question was for me and Bug. Hubbit had to guess what we’d written.
It read: What annoys you the most?
I wrote: Dirt.
Bug wrote: Abooba (Inside family joke, not important to this story.)
Hubbit guessed incorrectly.
Quite a few questions later, it was time for me and Bug to answer another question on scrap paper. Since I wanted to conserve paper, Bug and I simply used the other side of the same paper we’d previously written on for the first question. However, Bug ended up with mine (with the word “Dirt” on one side) and I ended up with his (with the word “Abooba” on one side).
The question read: What is your favorite type of candy bar?
Now, here’s where things got tricky. While Bug did indeed turn 8 today and is a very mature and lovely boy, he still gets a little bratty when he doesn’t win a game the first time we play it. In fact, if we don’t let him win the first time we play, he likely won’t ever play again. Since this was a brand new game and it WAS his birthday, Hubbit and I were willing to do whatever it took to let him take home the victory.
That being said, we were at the point in the game where if I guessed Bug’s response to the question correctly, we would both get to move ahead three spaces…which would put Bug at the Finish Line and give him the big W-I-N. Hubbit and I were both aware and without speaking knew what had to happen.
To pull it off successfully, Hubbit had to peek at Bug’s answer to the question and mouth the words to me, allowing me to correctly guess what he wrote and allowing him to win!
I looked at Hubbit, gave him the “nod” and repeated the question:
What is your favorite type of candy bar?
He peeked at Bug’s paper slyly and mouthed something to me that was simply untranslatable. I was unsure of what he’d mouthed, but I was certain it was in no way the name of a candy bar. So, I quickly gave him the silent facial expression of “HUH?!” and focused clearly on his mouth movements the second time, putting forth my absolute best effort to understand what this man was trying to communicate to me.
After a few seconds of utter confusion, I suddenly realized Bug had used my previous scrap paper, Hubbit had looked at the wrong side of it and as a result, Hubbit was CONFIDENTLY mouthing the word “Dirt” instead of Bug's answer of his favorite candy bar.
Oh. Em. Gee.
Sadly, I could not recover from this TOTAL FAILURE of tag-team game scamming and was not able to guess correctly because well...for some ca-ray-zee reason...I knew and understood there is no candy bar on the face of the EARTH named “Dirt”. Apparently, I am the only ad-ult in this house that possesses that small piece of knowledge.
Ironically, Bug answered his next question correctly and won the game honestly.
Meanwhile, I learned…
1) There are many times as a parent you feel you must protect your children from disappointment. However, whether you succeed or not, things will turn out just fine.
And, most importantly…
2) Hubbit is a TERRIBLE board-game-cheater. Geez.
Whitney
“No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids.” (Bill Cosby)
