August 13 – “An early, healthy celebration”

I had a bit of an early birthday celebration last night with some of our grandkids.  A batch of them were over here spending the night.  Kel and Christina were out on an anniversary date.  (One year on my birthday they got married.  Kel presented me with a daughter.  Nice.  Great gift).  Nathan and April were both on shift so we had Cailyn too.  Sure missed the other three Waco-ites.  It wasn’t quite as rowdy as a “real” cousin sleepover, but they did their best, Zak and Caleb and Luke. 

So back to the birthday portion of the bash.  I was presented with one of Christina’s famous chocolate pies.  Had to promise to share it with Micah, though.  I also received an Astros t-shirt.  One would think I followed that team for some reason.  They won again last night, by the way.  Another birthday present just for me, I’m sure.  They added yet another rookie to the lineup.  Number ten.  He hit a home run for his first major league hit.  Nice job, kid. 

I went and picked up some pizza so that everything we ate (including this morning’s donuts) would magically transform into healthy.  Pizza does that, you know.  And after pizza they wanted either some of my chocolate pie or a root beer float.  I was give power of life and death over dessert, so I held everything hostage and demanded a birthday song before it would be released.  What followed was a rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” that was at the same time “wildly discordant” yet eerily beautiful.  Something about the voices of children does that.  There were no candles, though.  Oh, they asked.  I told them that they don’t make that many candles.  Of course Josiah had an answer to that one.  He said I could get one of those candles that was shaped like a six and another one shaped like a … five.  Now wait a minute.  I’m not 65 quite yet.

After the party we settled in to watch the Astros.  Well, I did that.  The kids had 15 minutes of media time.  I was assigned to help Noa with the preschool game Chris has on her phone while Chris cleaned up the kitchen.  She told me all Noa had to do was pop the balloons.  Um … I couldn’t figure it out.  I pushed every button.  No balloons.  I even listened to the spiel coming out.  Nothing.  No help at all.  I found one screen with cows and chickens, but no balloons.  Everything I pushed eventually led me to a screen that demanded I buy something for $2.99.  That couldn’t be right.  Chris finally came over and bailed me out.  She pushed two things (that I didn’t see, so I’m still in the dark) and the screen transformed into what it was supposed to have been doing all along – balloons.  I concede.  Preschool video games are totally beyond the realm of my expertise.  But tomorrow is my birthday.  Maybe I can figure it out by then. 

1 Corinthians 8:2-3 says, “The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.  But the man who loves God is known by God.”

Father, I’m not sure imparting knowledge of video games is what you had in mind when you said the whole “out of the mouths of babes” thing.  But bring on that kid-borne wisdom.  Amen.