Happy Birthday!

My boy turned 15 last Saturday.  Kaleb’s due date was November 25^th, so I did everything I could to induce labor weeks before that so he wouldn’t ever have his birthday between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That’s a busy time of year for me, but also for everyone else and I anticipated that birthday party scheduling would certainly be a challenge.  I should have known he would be a strong willed child when he didn’t obey my wishes from the get-go.

Plan B took center stage right from the start, as I then planned to celebrate his birth in the summer, on his HALF birthday, when more people could attend and it was more sensible to be outdoors.  These all day summer parties have been an event for entire families and a bit over-the-top by some standards.  In contrast, Kaleb’s actual birthday in December has always been a pretty low-key affair with just our wonderful neighbors and a few other adults joining us for lunch.

But the one thing we’ve done each year, since his second birthday, to make the actual day somewhat special, is fill his room with balloons the night before, so when he wakes up on his birthday, his room is transformed into a very fun place to be, even if he is all by himself.

Every year Kaleb tries to stay awake long enough to catch us in the act of bringing in the balloons, but we continue to rise to the challenge, even if it means we stay up later and later each year.  It takes hours to fill 350 balloons, even with an air compressor, and my fingers are numb from tying all those knots, but it’s so worth it in the end.  Kaleb can’t wait to wake up and jump off his bed into a sea of balloons that bounce around haphazardly as he moves about like a mole under the lawn.  He bats them around from one wall to the next and then disappears like a ninja as he holds still and calls for me, seeing if I can find him somewhere under the three plus feet of balloons.  It just never gets old. 

What does get old is retrieving balloons that have escaped from his room and picking up bits of exploded balloons for several months afterwards.  But considering we only have two more birthdays with him until he’s potentially off to college, and I’m pretty sure his roommate won’t appreciate our little tradition, I’ll just enjoy this part of his childhood as long as I can and try hard not to complain about the after affects.

The first time we did the balloons, I thought it was a one-time deal, but based on the pure joy that it brought him, we did it again the next year… and the next and the next.  It was never meant to be a tradition, but I guess that’s how traditions get started.  Something so good happens that it’s worth repeating.