Happy Birthday

At eight o’clock Tuesday morning, when he still hadn’t risen for the day, I went into his room and laid quietly beside him on his pillow. As if sensing that I was near, he rolled over, one hand clasped in a ball, with his thumb hitching a ride up and down with every inward pull of his tongue, and the other hand reaching, searching for my scattered mass of morning hair, strewn about his 20 year old pillow.

As he lay there, still half asleep, fulfilling the two most critical urges of his young life, it must have hit him what day it was. On his belly, with his thumb still stuck in his mouth, he lifted one eye to look at me and whispered, “Birthday!”

He’d been faithfully counting down the days until he’d finally turn five for at least a month. I was continuously amazed that he was able to keep up with his count even when he had 25, 24, 23 days to go. But his special day had finally arrived, and he could not have been more pleased.

He’d spent the weekend with Grandma and Granddaddy and shared cupcakes and a song with his cousins. He celebrated another happy birthday song with his grandmother and the triplets, and yet a third with his classmates at school. As eager as he was about his big day, it seemed every time the singing began, he’d get a case of the birthday bashfuls and hide himself right under the table. But even that couldn’t quell his excitement.

Before four o’clock ever rolled around, he had asked me at least a hundred times “how much longer” until his party. We usually just plan family parties, but this year, a mere two days earlier, he decided he wanted “a kid party”. With too little time to plan, we invited a friend, and that was certainly enough to satisfy our little birthday boy.

I suppose he sensed that he needed something to keep him busy until everyone arrived because he asked if he could make a sign for the porch to welcome his guests. I wrote a few words on a piece of paper, and he took his box of chalk out front. To the best of his now five-year old ability, he etched into the concrete, in purple: “Cooper’s Birthday 5 yrs. old.”

Finally, party time had arrived, and so did our guests, including three unexpected but welcomed neighbor kids from across the street. A table full of six, excited little boys sat patiently awaiting a feast fit for a five year old. And seventy-two pigs in the blanket, 13 cupcakes, two dozen rice crispies, an oversized bag of cheese puffs and a bottle of Sprite later…they were full, with the best yet to come.

When a boy’s birthday comes at the change of a season and he seems to be growing faster than a Nolan Ryan fastball, he tends to receive a lot of “necessities,” presented as birthday gifts, of course. And necessities for Cooper this year came in the form of jeans and long sleeve shirts for the winter. This is simply practical to a parent, but for a little boy, if you can’t drive it, throw it, eat it or tear it up, it’s just not much of a present. Luckily, a new monster truck from Grandma and a set of Matchbox racers from Uncle Max was enough to please this kid right out of his newly-opened pants.

He was thrilled to receive new baseball gear, and he seemed to learn quite quickly how to tear into every birthday card in anticipation of something green. But when he got down to the last present, he realized that there was still something missing.

Earlier in the week when his grandmother asked him what he wanted for his birthday, he said, “Well, I really want a pitching mound, but my dad’s getting me that. So I guess you can just come to my party.” But somehow, that last box on the table didn’t quite look like the mound he had imagined.


In fact, after he had the paper ripped off and the box torn apart, it still didn’t look much like what he expected. And it wasn’t until I told him, “Coop! It’s your pitcher’s mound! Smell that rubber!” that it finally dawned on him that he’d gotten just what he’d asked for.

As the day came to a close and we tucked our boy into bed that night, I asked, “Well, did you have a good day?” He smiled his sweet, toothy smile and whispered a satisfied “Yes!” with that look of happiness and contentment that every parent prays her children find. And with a hug, a kiss and a “Love you, Mom,” I squeezed him one last time. “Love you too, Buddy. Happy Birthday.”

And that’s All in a day’s work!