Because Seth was born in Y2K, it's always easy to remember exactly how old he is. He turned one in 2001, two in 2002, three in 2003. Bright group that you are, you can figure out the rest on your own. Sorry for the sarcasm. I think I've spent too much time lately sitting in McDonald's waiting for people to finish their various activities before driving back to Shepherd. And here I am again, only this time I'm at the McDonald's way out on the West End by the Shiloh 14 movie theatre. Seth is there with three friends watching "Kung Fu Panda II," in celebration of his 11th birthday.
His actual birthday was June 14th, two weeks ago when he and I were in Salt Lake City. Now don't think we didn't celebrate big time. We did. In fact, nearly the entire day was devoted to Seth. Okay, not quite the entire day. We did spend around three hours house hunting, which turned out wonderfully because that's the day we found our house. But the rest of the day was totally Seth. Mathew got up at 8:00 in the morning to take Seth bouldering. This is a fairly new hobby of Matt's. Apparently it's sort of like rock climbing, except you don't go nearly as high, and you don't use ropes. Instead, you take these big crash pads to put down under you, so when you fall, you don't die. Matt loves it, and he bought Seth some used climbing shoes, so he could try it too. I never actually got to see him climb, but apparently he did okay for his first time.
By the time they got back, Shulamith and I were up and ready to go to breakfast at Denny's. The exciting thing there: the kids' menu is for children age 10 and under. Seth was quite proud to order his Grand Slam off the adult menu, and then he got it for free because it was his birthday. Next he opened his gifts. Shulamith and Matt gave him the card game "Killer Bunnies." I don't know much about that except the game takes a sweet, docile creature and turns it into a sadistic, angry murderer. Lovely! We gave Seth a cell phone, which he had no idea was coming. I had told him he couldn't have one until he was 13. Oooh, I love it when I can pull off that level of surprise. That evening, after house hunting, we took him to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, where he got to sit on a saddle while everyone sang to him. The following day we took him to Lagoon, a rather amazing amusement park with tons of wonderful roller coasters.
So my thought was...this was a pretty good birthday, huh? And Seth was most appreciative for sure, but he still kept talking about the "friend" party that he would have when we returned to Billings. I hoped he might just forget about that, but of course 11-year-olds rarely forget anything (other than taking showers and brushing teeth), and Seth hasn't stopped talking about the "friend" party since we got back. So today is the day. I drove around and picked up three of his friends and took them to the theatre. Because it's "stimulus Tuesday," I was able to get them all $1 popcorns and $1 pops. Everyone seemed happy. I made sure they were seated comfortably in the theatre and then came across the street to McDonald's. After "Hoodwinked II" and "Shrek Forever After," I simply can't handle another kid movie this summer. I will go back just before the movie ends. Then it's yogurt sundaes for dessert, and I'll deliver the boys to their homes.
Happy birthday, Seth! We love you so much. We are delighted you are 11 in 11.
Oh, but Kung Fu Panda II was such a great movie. I can easily believe that the other kid's movies you've seen were hard to sit through, but KFP2 was delightful. As was Cars 2 - just saw that today. Happy birthday to Seth! A belated one, anyway. :)
ReplyDeleteOooh Rachael, maybe I should have gone with them after all.
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