Silas Has His First Birthday Party

 Young parents, along with new grandparents, are quite familiar with the books by famed children’s author Eric Carle, specifically his The Very Hungry Caterpillar series. The plot of these stories centers around a tiny caterpillar with a voracious appetite who devours everything in its path during one unrestrained binge-eating session after another. Although the specter of childhood obesity hangs over each of these books like the sword of Damocles, somehow they have become classics of children’s literature. They also happen to be among Silas’ favorite books and became the theme of his first birthday party. Lolli spent the past month scouring the interwebs for all things caterpillar. The results are displayed in the pictures which accompany this post.

The amount of planning and labor that went into this party are off the charts. But a child only has a first birthday one time so you’ve got to make it count. This one was in Columbia and was attended by all of his home town buddies and their parents. The kids had a blast. Their parents had a blast. There were homemade cupcakes, an ice cream bar and a smash cake. Silas picked at the smash cake, never once putting any of it in his mouth, preferring to fling the icing on the wall behind him instead. Later, when Lolli offered to feed him the cake with a fork (like civilized people do), he devoured it with great glee and enthusiasm.

By the time everyone left the party, the grownups were wiped out. The four all-stars included Lolli and Pops, and Grandma & Grandpa who flew in from Ohio and were indispensable in the three days of preparation required to throw such a grand soirée.

I cannot begin to describe how wonderful it is to know that my grandson is loved by so many. He is lucky beyond knowing, and I am grateful beyond telling.

Now, we head back to Short Pump to prepare for part two of his first birthday party—the Dunnevant family version next weekend. Everybody does this right? Two birthday parties at two different locations—right?

I Win at Life!!!!

 Ok, one thing nobody tells you about retirement is that there are some things you miss from your working days. For a guy with my particular wiring its the charge of adrenaline that accompanied a big payday. Yes, I know that might sound a bit superficial, but the feeling that came over you when you landed a big case was pretty cool. It was a moment of victory in a sometimes unforgiving season of loss and it felt incredible.

Well…let me tell you about an experience I just had that was even better.

The first part of this will sound dumb to most of you because basically it is kinda dumb. Pam and I are leaving for South Carolina in the morning for my grandson’s first birthday Lalapalooza and it just so happens that both of our key fobs for the Hyundai were on the fritz. So Pam sends me this video of some random woman giving a two minute talk about what to do when your key fob goes on the fritz which amounted to A. Replacing the battery or B. Buy a new one. I didn’t find this woman particularly helpful especially since there was not an accompanying video showing just how to replace the battery in a 2016 Hyundai key fob! So, I went straight to YouTube and dialed up a helpful video of some guy with a southern drawl doing the deed. I followed his instructions to the letter and discovered that I would need two 2032 disc batteries. To my great astonishment my giant hard plastic battery organizing mini-briefcase thing had the exact two batteries I needed—something that has never once happened in my 68 years. I popped those babies in and marched myself out to the garage and pressed the appropriate buttons and was thrilled to discover that they worked!! Look, I have many talents but nobody has ever accused me of being…handy. So, this was something of a triumph.

So, that was the dump part. But this next thing that happened is the greatest thing in the world. I hear a blip from my cell phone and it’s a text that my daughter sent to Pam and me. She said:

“I’m just gonna leave this little clip right here…”

I clicked on the video and it was Silas getting ready for bed. His mom asked him, “Silas, who are you looking forward to seeing tomorrow?”

The boy immediately says, “Pop!”

I win at life.