Birthday boom and crash

My middle son is turning 8 tomorrow, but we had his party on Saturday. He woke up vibrating with excitement, literally. He couldn’t stop jumping, flipping, dancing, not even long enough to eat a single bite of breakfast.  It was three hours of constant callisthenics as we waited for 10 a.m. to arrive.

Knowing him as we do, we held the party at a trampoline place, where he played dodgeball, did back-flips into the sponge pit, and held a longest jumping competition. None of this reduced his energy in the slightest. He did manage a few bites of pizza and cake (and snuck a handful of candy), but he was still operating at high gear on almost zero fuel.

His best friend came over in the afternoon, and they skateboarded in the parking lot of the nearby church, which has curbs, rails, stairs, and speedbumps enough to keep them occupied for hours.  He came back only just in time to make dinner for us – giant hotdogs and (under duress from his parents) beans from the garden as a token vegetable.  He ate almost none of it, too busy bouncing on his chair and recounting his skateboard exploits using a finger-sized board.

After supper we set ourselves up for our traditional father-son birthday movie night, where we bring our blankets and pillows downstairs and crash on the couch, watching movies and eating junkfood.  He was actually capable of staying seated by that point, and he ate something – a whole bag of Cheezies and an entire bottle of Gaterade.

It wasn’t until after midnight though, as the second movie ended, that he finally said to me, his eyes half-closed, “Dad, I think I’m tired.”

Luke Hill is a stay-at-home father of three boys, aged nine, eight, and three.  He has fathered, fostered, adopted, or provided a temporary home for kids anywhere between birth and university.  He has taught college courses, adoption seminars, camp groups, Sunday School classes, rugby teams, not to mention his own homeschooled kids.