I know I’ve mentioned this before but my kids don’t
particularly care about stuff. They would always prefer to have some kind of
fun experience instead. That’s made fairly evident when looking at the way
Ellie chose to celebrate her 9th birthday (yes, nine) this past
weekend.
From the very beginning, Ellie was fairly involved in
planning her birthday. She knew she wanted to eat a “Better Than Anything” Cake
and she also knew that she wanted to go on some kind of adventure. In addition,
she planned out the actual day of her birthday in painstaking detail.
Her birthday began fairly simply with the request of her
favorite food, pancakes, for breakfast. However, these weren’t any ordinary pancakes.
These were topped with whipped cream and sprinkles. Clearly the breakfast of
champions, right?
From there, Bethany and I called a quick audible and
bestowed a birthday gift upon Ellie. While she had already received her gift of
a new tennis racket a couple of weeks prior so that she would have it for
tennis camp, it didn’t seem cool for her to not have anything to open. As such,
I had sneakily headed into Costco a few days prior sans kids to purchase a new
beach towel with Bluey emblazoned upon it that Ellie had been eying for quite
some time. Ellie’s excitement was fairly obvious as she spread the towel out on
the living floor and laid down on it, proudly proclaiming, “Look, this towel is
bigger than I am!”.
Once birthday gifts were opened, it was time for us to head outside
for some tie-dye fun. Earlier in the week, I had taken the kids to Hobby Lobby
to pick out some things to tie-dye the morning of Ellie’s birthday. Ellie
decided on a new t-shirt and a pillowcase while Ethan picked a drawstring bag
and pillowcase as well. While tie-dying always takes a bit of work to set up,
it’s a ton of fun watching the kids exercise their creativity in coming up with
fun designs and colors. Soon enough, we finished tie-dying and it was time to
let the dye soak.
The next thing on Ellie’s list had been to play outside.
However, Mother Nature had another idea in mind as the rain fell hard outside.
Instead, we decided that a family movie was in order. With that, we all snuggled
together in front of the television to watch the live-action version of The
Lion King. Neither kid had ever actually seen this version of the film but both
were pretty invested by the end.
After our movie ended, it was time to partake in Ellie’s planned
birthday lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Yes, I am aware
that it’s June. Ellie was too for that matter. However, can you really argue
with a brand-new nine-year-old when she makes a relatively simple birthday
lunch request? After lunch ended, it was time for both kids to head to their
individual quiet times for a short nap as we would be having a late night.
Once the naps came to an end, we spent the afternoon just
kind of hanging out around the house and engaging in a variety of activities
until the time came for us to leave the house for our next engagement. You see,
one of the perks of Bethany’s job at DFA is that tickets for sporting events
occasionally are available for employees to call dibs on. This was one of those
times as Bethany, seeing that the Kansas City Monarchs had a home game on Ellie’s
birthday, took advantage and asked for the tickets. Lucky for Ellie, we were now
the proud recipients for four Legends Club tickets.
When we arrived at the Legends Field, we found our way to
the VIP Entrance located far away from the traditional commoner’s gates. Then, after
a quick stop at the Fan Services table where Ellie obtained her birthday crown,
we headed up the private stairs and into the Legends Club where we were treated
to an “all you can eat” buffet complete with hot dogs, brisket, turkey, macaroni
and cheese, baked beans, watermelon, potato salad, and several other things.
Once the game started, we took our seats right outside the Legends
Club in a nice, covered section that served to protect us from potential
sunburns, errant foul balls, and crying babies. However, there was one thing
that the Legends Club seats couldn’t protect us from and that was a visit from Monty,
the Monarchs mascot.
While a mascot visit seems like it shouldn’t be a bad thing,
this occasion was slightly traumatizing. It started simply enough with Monty
entering our seating area and inviting Ellie to join him for a picture.
However, when Ellie stood alongside him, her birthday crown became hooked to
the baseball stitches lining the side of Monty’s baseball-shaped head. When he
stood up, the crown whipped off of Ellie’s head and fell from the second deck
to the first deck below. Monty and Ellie were both understandably traumatized by
this moment. They both just kept sadly looking down at the ground below. Soon
enough though, a Monarchs staffer was right there in our seats with a brand-new
crown for Ellie to wear.
After that, I’m happy to say that there were no other
mishaps awaiting us at the Monarchs game. We simply enjoyed watching a baseball
game. Although, I will say that Ellie was more than a little sad that the Monarchs
couldn’t muster a win for her birthday. The post-game fireworks kind of helped
to soothe that hurt though.
All in all, I’d say that Ellie had a great ninth birthday.
She got to create her own schedule of events for the day and had a ton of fun
in doing so. It is a little weird though to realize that this is her final year
with a single-digit age. Next year, the big 1-0 hits and who knows what that
will bring. Actually, let’s just focus on having fun this year and worry about
next year later.
#DaddyWrite
