Friday, March 21, 2008

The Big 05

Yesterday not only marked the 5 year anniversary of the war in Iraq, but also the anniversary of my daughter's birth. Yes, my "pink and purple punky princess" is now officially half a decade old. Thats one-twentieth of a century old! How time flies. It seems like only a few days ago, she was just 4 years old.

To celebrate the day, she, her brother, and I spent the entire day together running errands and having fun together in my tiny little single-cab Nissan truck. Fortunately her birthday coincided with our Spring Break vacation and the weather was gloriously beautiful. Unfortunately, their mother (who also happens to be my beautiful wife) had to work, but that worked out to be a blessing in disguise, 'cause it would have been uncomfortably cramped in that little single-cab Nissan truck with an extra person. We did all manage to celebrate the ocassion together at the "official" birthday party a couple weekends ago, when my daughter had her "Bindi the Jungle Girl" party at the San Antonio Zoo with all of her classmates from school. Yesterday was like a "bonus" birthday for my "sweet little sunshine angel baby muffin cakes."

Throughout the day, her brother and I made it our duty and singular purpose to cater to her every need, desire, and whim. We thoroughly enjoyed spoiler her on her special day (not that we don't spoiler her EVERY day), and she caught on very quickly. "Daddy, can I play with those sharp knives? . . . . . but it's my special day. . . ." How can one say no to that request, especially when she make that little face? Soon afterwards, my son and I were fighting over who made the better tourniquet . . . . Just kidding, it only took a few band-aids.

After spending the morning giving her "race car" rides through the Lowe's store in their specially designed kiddie baskets and picking out 3 BRATZ movies at Blockbuster video, we made a run to the local Dairy Queen to pick up some lunch for ourselves and their mother (who couldn't even take a lunch break from her busy work schedule.) After delivering the burger and tea that would provide their mother with the sustenance she would need to finish her laborious day, my daughter, son, and I went to the park to have ourselves a little picnic. It was perfect except for the absence of my wife and an insufficient supply of ketchup packets.

Immediately after consuming our lunch, my kids wanted hit the playground. Hoping their food would stay down, I agreed against what would have been their mother's better judgment. I told them we'd stay for twenty minutes since my hands were full with drinks, sweaters, and shoes, and because we still had 3/4 of a day of fun left to execute and only 1/2 a day left in which to execute it. An hour and a half later, I finally decided to sit at a bench, as my kids were having too much fun and had incidentally run into their two cousins. I used my time alone in the shade to let my mind wander, taking notice of kid-to-adult ratio, the father-to-mother ratio, the thin-to-overweight ratio, and the courteous-to-playground tyrant ratio. I also mentally cataloged the types and number of trees in the area, counted the number of water spouts, repeatedly waved to the passengers on the park's train, and listened intently to my daughter's periodic reports of what she was doing.

After the park, my "little J" was tuckered out, so we went home to rest, and by rest, I mean watch the BRATZ movies we picked up earlier. I feigned interest in her animated movies as I read my Sports Illustrated magazine. Before we knew it, their mother came home, and we all took turns giving her hugs and kisses. We told her about our day, and she told us about hers. OUR story was much better than hers, but we all wished that we had been able to tell the same story.

Later that evening, both sets of grandparents came over to shower praises and gifts upon the birthday girl. We all shared ice cream and some gross cake I had purchased earlier in the day. My daughter got so many new clothes last night, that I'm pretty sure it will be enough to last her through today (so far, she has changed clothes today only three times.) It's going to be an arduous laundry day this week, that is if I survive the incessant, repeated playing of those all-to- annoying BRATZ movies.

Yep, my daughter has so far spent the majority of her first full day at age 5 watching back-to-back-to-back full-length animated features of spoiled little girls. I hope she doesn't get any ideas . . .

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Listen up DAD!!! The Bratz aren't SPOILDED! And, I'm on the overwight scale! I weigh 74!!! And i'm 7!!! OH BROTHER!!!

--Tatertot

Thomas Korpi said...

Hmm... Spoiled... may be a little too late for that, but she's worth it :D And yes, those Bratz movies are the worst. Well, I haven't seen them, but I've seen the toys in Target and they are... well... I'll just say they don't seem like good role models for a 5-year-old girl. The toys make it look like they're good role models for 20-somethings "working their way through college" at the local "dance" dive. But, we have at least 15 years to avoid that. Just don't start buying her the Bratz fashion line and you'll be fine.

For her birthday, we got her something more tomboyish... a rugged outdoorsy gift. Hopefully that will counteract the Bratz.