7 Years Old

April 25th commemorated one of the five greatest days of my life. My middle son celebrated his 7th birthday. He was dealt an ace in the hole as his birthday fell on a Friday this year, nothing better than that no matter what birthday you are celebrating right?

I took the Friday off from work so that I could spend the day at school with him on his big day. For some reason I thought it would fly by, a dizzying blur of birthday congratulations, cupcakes, and silliness. Strike one. My wife also teaches at the same school (kindergarten) and manages two separate classes of 24 kids which alternate each day except Friday when both classes are there for half a day, that's 48 five year olds. Strike two. She was having 'career day' for all the kids which required them to dress up as what they wanted to be when they grew up. (For the record, not one of them dressed up to be a landscaper, smart kids)

My job was to call names out of a basket and that person was to come up front and tell everyone what they planned on being while my wife took the previous student into the hall and took their picture for the end of the year graduation production. Simple enough right? Strike three. I watched a parade of vets, dentists, chefs, and swim instructors file up to stand proudly but bashfully in front of their peers and not have a word to say. It might be because the kid who wanted to be Spiderman kept distracting everyone by slinging imaginary webs from the crouch position and reminding us all that he, "was Spiderman!" I took a quick glance at the clock to see if we were going to make it to lunch time before I had to strangle Peter Parker and saw that it was only 8:47. Next Batter. I told my wife that I needed to go to my son's room and see what I could help with there and she grudgingly let me go but told me to be back at 12:45 for round two of you'll never guess what I want to be commences. Deal. Anything to get away from Spidy.

I arrived in the first grade room in time to sit on the floor,(I'm forty) for twenty minutes to listen to the teacher read us a story, and also for my legs to cramp up and fall asleep. Mrs. D would read a paragraph then ask all the kids a question, by the end of story time I was trying my hardest not to blurt out the answer and ruin it for the kids, just like when I was in first grade.

As the day dragged on to the lunch hour, I was extremely happy to find out that there was a complimentary lunch for all the volunteers today, my luck was starting to turn around. I let the kids go to the cafeteria to have school pizza as I ventured to the potluck room and found out it was a salad potluck. Are you kidding? Twenty different salads the teachers all brought in for us, don't get me wrong, I appreciate their time and effort, but a salad pot luck? Where else on the planet is this normal? And is every salad required to have cold green peas? A cold taco salad kind of defeats the 'taco' part doesn't it? I managed to scarf down a couple samples without too many peas slipping by my radar and noticed that it was rapidly approaching afternoon career carnage, I knew that at some point during the day I would aggravate my wife and didn't want it to be this early so hustled off to help again.

Well surprise, surprise, the afternoon brought some soccer players, Hannah Montana, a plumber, dirt bike racers, but no web slinger, he was replaced by the red power ranger that was stealing things out of the cubbies and putting them in his backpack. The two cops didn't even see him, nice work Baretta, better start thinking of a new career, but Mrs. S saw him and the power ranger was wishing he could take the 3-5 years instead of the talking to he received, I was even uncomfortable and put back the candy I took off her desk.

OK, I could go on forever but have to fast forward to the evening festivities. We had secured a place called "Pump it Up" that consists of inflatable obstacle courses and jumpy things for the big celebration. Kellen invited everyone in his class and most were more than eager to attend, he was a bit troubled that his 'girlfriend' was out of town but it didn't spoil the evening for him. We had to stop by and pick up a classmate that had missed all week due to the fact he brought a BB gun to school to show his friends and was suspended for 5 days, normal right?

When we arrive at PIU, all the kids are giddy with anticipation but have to sit through a safety video which none of them paid any attention to, then they were unleashed and it was on. I hovered around the periphery to make sure no BB guns or other foreign objects were brought in and noticed the group of dads that had decided to stay, all gather around my charming sister as she was just nice enough not to say leave me alone, so they didn't.

Well I hadn't acted like a seven year old for at least forty-five minutes and the urge to jump in and join the fun was killing me. My wife noticed the inevitable that was building and gave me the go ahead nod, like get it over with, so I plunged in. It was better than great. I could jump higher than all the kids, I was faster through the obstacle course than all the kids, I was the best dodgeball player there, I was never going to leave, I was the supreme ruler of "Pump it Up". Then I noticed I was breathing rather heavily and had some pretty severe mat burns on my elbows that had now caught fire as I worked up a lather. It was at this point when I accidentally hit the sweetest girl there in the eye with a nerf dodgeball. I crawled out and watched the kids continue this madness for two hours straight.

When the two hours was up we were herded into the 'birthday room' where a PIU employee directed traffic as she got the cake ready, poured drinks, and moved Kellen rapidly through his presents. This wasn't her first dance either. Birthday 'nazi' is what we started calling her, not to her face, probably would have stepped on your cake and thrown your root beer in your face for insubordination. She wasn't going to stay a minute past closing time, and made sure we didn't either.

We traded in the suspended kid for the girl who had started crying for her mother twenty minutes ago, and had to give her a ride home. Brutal. When we finally got home, got all the presents in the house, and kicked our feet up, I decided I'm glad they are only seven once. Career day seemed like a week ago, then it hit me....I still have a four year old.