It seems as though Dad has given over the blog to me to write a couple of posts. He said I did such a great job yesterday that he would let me tell my own story about my first Birthday party. If you’re not aware of what a Birthday Party is, let me explain:
First, you drive in a car for a loooooong time to another state. You stop by and sleep at your Nana and Papa’s house, if they live on the way to where you’re going. For some reason you hold it at a basketball arena in the middle of the woods (I haven’t figured this part out yet). All of your family drives a loooooong way to the arena in the middle of the woods. Some of your parents’ friends drive there, too. When everyone arrives, they take the person whose Birthday it is away from their parents and then passes he or she around to one another. Seriously, there’s more hand-offs than in a football game. After you’re passed to every person in the room, and you’re feeling queasy, then they feel it’s time to give you cake. Here’s where things get tricky. They don’t cook the cake before they bring it. No, they recreate the feeling of a fancy restaurant by bringing out the cake and lighting it on fire right in front of your face. They also sing a song called “Happy Birthday.” I tried to sing along, but then I realized I didn’t really know the words…so I just kind of hummed to the general tune.
When the Birthday Cake/Fire Hazard arrived to my highchair, they all seemed to be waiting for me to do something. I think Mommy asked me to blow out the fire. I wasn’t going to do that, though. I don’t think they realized the risk of food-borne illness in undercooked food. They ended up blowing it out for me though…so I figured it must be done, though that was the quickest cooking I’d ever seen. My cake was different than the one the other people ate. I have weird stuff with food, so I can’t have dairy or gluten (whatever that is). My cake had some Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Chocolate icing, though…so it was all good for me. I thought it was a little rude, though, when my parents didn’t cut me a slice. Everyone was staring at me, and I figured that since it was my own cake…I’d just dig in. I didn’t really want to get much on my clothes or hands, so I went in face-first.
Then, you get bags of stuff. I liked all my bags of stuff. My favorites are probably some monsters that take a bath with me, and Bacon…a pig who sleeps in my crib with me. I really like him. He snores, but when he does, his ear wiggles. It’s quite funny.
There was lots more that happened, too. First off, here’s a better view of the party. If you look closely, you can see me in the process of being passed around the room:
My Great Papaw decided to go shoot some hoops:
This is the other cake that everyone else ate. There’s a Big Bird Candle on it. Although it’s seen better days, that candle is kinda cool, because it was the candle on my Dad’s first Birthday cake. And that was like a ton of years ago.
Then, after everything is done and cleaned up. You drive back a looooooong way home and play with the stuff you got in the bags.
Note from TheBrandNewDad: We had Ryne’s Birthday party across the street from where I grew up. It’s 203 miles from Nashville. It’s an extremely small community of 100 or so people. And yes, there’s a large community center part of Aldridge Community Missionary Baptist Church right in the middle complete with a Basketball court. We thank them sooo much for letting us hold it there, because Jamie and I both have very large families, and it was easier for us to go to them than for them to come to us in Nashville.
