Today my youngest turned nine. For some reason I can’t quite explain, this birthday seems heavy. Nine is not really very little. It is not that I want my boys to stay little forever, I am proud of them and enjoy watching them grow and mature, but the marching of time seems more pronounced with this particular birthday.
He opened presents before breakfast (his top three gifts, not counting the check from his grandma (“whoa, my first check!”) were a Calvin and Hobbes comic book, blue Nike high tops sneakers, and a fidget spinner). Oh fidget spinners…
For dinner we got take out at one of his favorite places (he ordered a pepperoni calzone) and we had a small triple chocolate fudge cake. It was a bundt cake, apparently his first one, for he was shocked and slightly taken aback when he discovered the hole in the middle.
He will have a birthday pool party here at Casa de Wrong Feet on the 20th with friends, so tonight was just for us.
As Cody showered, Carter and I snuggled on the couch. He read aloud to me Where the Wild Things Are and I “read” to him two library books that are wordless. We both enjoyed looking at the illustrations and talking about what we felt was going on in the story.
It was a good day. And as I often do, I catch myself reflecting back on his early birth and thinking about just how lucky we are to have such a sweet soul as a part of our family.
Love you Carter. Love you to the moon and more.
Shoes On The Wrong Feet 
Happy Birthday Carter! 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂
Thanks! He loves the line of chocolate cakes in your comment. 😉
aw – happy birthday, big guy. i know what you mean about ‘9’, it feels on the cusp of leaving little one status –
It sure does. Sigh.
Awh. Sweet. 🙂
It sure was. He is a sweetie.
Happy Birthday! Sounds like a perfect birthday: the right balance of being grown up and being young enough to snuggle. Alpine Girl turns five today (we’ll be partying on the 20th too) – we’re still at the stage where excitement turns into bouncing into naughtiness into screaming and finally into tears (mainly mine). I suspect your pool party for lots of nine year olds will be calmer than our party for ‘a couple’ of five year olds… have fun!
Hahaha – I am sure your gaggle of sugar-soaked, screaming, meltdown prone five year olds will have a great time. You may not, but that is another story. By the end of our party our pool will have chunks of sandwich, bits of chips, and shreds of water balloons floating in it. Good times, good times… 🙂
Nine. I miss nine. They are still little even if they don’t think so, and they still want you around. Sounds like a great birthday – especially the Calvin and Hobbes comic book! One of our family faves
It was a very good mixture of snuggles and being a little bit older.