Happy Birthday Garrett, bare minimum style

Garrett turned 8 on Monday and I just barely eeked out a birthday celebration for him.  I've said it before, but I'll say it again: having a January birthday sucks.  Everyone in our family, except Garrett who has been miraculously spared, has been sick.  The kind of sick where you wonder if today you'll feel terrible, a little better than terrible, or, happily, just crummy.  Mary and I don't speak full sentences any more.  We just cough out Morse code.  Cough. Cough.  Coughcoughcoughcough.  Cough-cough.  That's "I'll be there in a minute."

January was off to just a good start.  We were still riding the high of Christmas.  I was going to the gym everyday and feeling good.  2011 was rapidly wiping out the blues of 2010.  We took a cool family trip with friends to St. Louis and stayed in a funky hotel that the kids loved.  We've been living in the land of love and joy (mostly due to the euphoria that is brought on by hours of Wii Sports and Mario Cart).  We often invited friends to stay for dinner and thought the snow looked pretty.

And then boom!  We were down for the count and Garrett's birthday came with the hope that we could get through a round of Happy Birthday without hacking on the cake.  We invited our closest friends to join us for chicken dinosaurs and soup.  I stopped by Meijer on the way home, picked out the only chocolate cake that could pass for a "boy" cake and stuck a Sponge Bob figurine on it for decoration.  That evening as Garrett and his friends pronounced that this was the "best day ever", we grown ups sat on the couch and strategized ways to make it until Spring.  It took our friends 20 minutes to prepare their car for departure because a layer of ice an inch thick had frozen to their windshields.

Garrett, bless his heart, had a fantastic day (although later I learned that Mrs. Beck--his teacher--had passed out fruit roll ups in class in honor of Garrett's birthday because his lazy mother didn't bring in cupcakes.  Is this a requirement?  This is what I get for setting the bar so darn high in years past).  His best-day-ever was topped with extra goodness when he learned that school was canceled the next day and he could play with his birthday presents instead of singing Little Orphan Annie songs in Music class.

I guess turning 8 wasn't so bad for him.  I think my favorite thing about Garrett is how pleased he is by the small pleasures that come his way.  I hope he doesn't grow out of that.