It has happened in the blink of an eye. My big boy just turned seven.
And lucky him, his birthday just happened to fall on election day, so he had the day off. Grandma and Grandpa drove up early. They offered to keep the twins so that Josh and I could take Connor out for lunch and to visit the new "super-secret" place that we've been hinting to him about for a few weeks. He has decided it's the "Christmas & Birthday Store," which seems kind of appropriate.
So we started off with lunch at Cracker Barrel. His choice, though Mommy would never argue. His first request was McDonald's, at which point I quickly and quietly suggested he might want to think bigger and better. And then we took him to the "super-secret" place, which was in fact his birthday present. We enrolled him in an indoor baseball facility for a year. It offers indoor space for practice (batting cages with or without machines, fielding practice, and also private or small-group lessons). He is all about baseball, so we figured it would be a good gift. He walked in and his eyes got big. He just stood there, not saying a word (and that's saying something, in case you don't know him that well). We got checked in and took our tokens to one of the batting cages with the pitching machine. He took 72 pitches, and connected on most of the later ones (it took him a while to get back into it, and the machine pitched a little bit faster than his coach did last season).
Our last stop of the day was something kind of different. Daddy is a firefighter. And every year the firefighters do a toy drive for underprivileged kids. We stopped at the store and let Connor pick out several toys to donate to the program. He wanted to pick up everything. Sometimes two of everything. Which was impressive, because he knew that none of these toys were for him.
Next up was speech therapy (no school on his birthday, but it was still Tuesday, and that still means speech therapy for both of his brothers). We dropped Connor back off at the house, where Grandma and Grandpa were going to stay with him, and we took the twins to their therapy. He got to spend most of that time playing outside in the back yard, enjoying the last of this week's warm and sunny weather on the swings and the trampoline.
And last but not least was dinner with the extended family. Grandma and Grandpa were there, of course. Grammy, Pappy and Grandma JoAnn arrived next. Then Uncle Brian and Cousins Austin and Kyndal. Aunt Kelly was working, but she stopped by yesterday with cupcakes and presents, and also stayed to play with the boys for quite a while.
We picked up pizza and wings for dinner. There was a Hot Wheels cake and homemade cupcakes (Connor helped with the icing and sprinkles). There were lots and lots of presents. A big marble run. An electronic bank that counts your money and encourages you to save. Cash. Baseball figures. Books. Lots of cards.
It was a good day.