Birthday time

Both my eldest and my youngest had their birthdays this week, the one turning nine and the other three.

In past years we have had birthday parties for them, but this year we decided to make things a little less crazy and just to have them choose their favourite restaurant for a family dinner.  The three-year old chose a diner that sells pancakes all day, which is as close to heaven on earth as his young mind can conceive, and the nine-year old chose a sushi place, because that’s the sort of kid he is.

The other thing that we do on birthdays is have some kind of father and son time in the evening.  I sometimes take them for a sleepover or a sleep out somewhere.  We get some junk food, stay up late, play board games, and watch movies.  The idea is to have some time just the two of us where we can talk about what the next year means for them, the new privileges and responsibilities that they’ll have, the things that they can expect as they get another year older.

Now, my three-year old is a bit young for that sort of thing yet, but the time I spend with my older children in this way has become really important to me, and I hope to them as well.  It makes their birthdays a time for more than just presents and cake, but also for reflection and maturing, for acknowledging what they’ve done in the past year, for understanding what they’ll do in the year ahead, for talking about their lives a little more seriously than we get to do regularly.

It usually means a night where I stay up too late, don’t sleep well, and have to subsist off of coffee the next day, but it’s time well spent.  I wouldn’t trade it for anything.