Birthday Blues

I can remember how much I looked forward to my birthday and Christmas as a youngster. Without being weighed down by any knowledge of economics and the burden of Santa’s actual address, the sky was the limit when it came to not only what I could ask for, but also what I expected.

For several years running, I asked for a lightsaber. Not a toy one. A real one. One that could cut through things. A green one. A REAL GREEN LIGHTSABER.

This one

When I was a kid, the rule about opening presents was “no sour grapes”. In other words. Be thankful for the gifts you receive and no bad attitudes.

I think I did a pretty good job of following this rule but that didn’t mean that I didn’t suffer in silence when I realized that all of the gifts had been opened and I remained without my Jedi weapon of choice.

In hindsight, I do not blame my parents for this. After all, lightsabers would be a very irresponsible gift for a child and they do not exist.

Enter our son Oliver. 

Hi

In the unlikely event that you are unfamiliar with our fun family dynamic, I’ll quickly inform you that Oliver is our youngest of five children. He is also a twin. His birthday is December 23rd. Which, as my wife is fond of saying, means that he has to share a birthday with his brother and Jesus.

Meeting birthday expectations is already a steep climb for parents, steeper when said expectations are not grounded in physics or a realistic budget.

I have included an incomplete list of some of Oliver’s demands.

• That sword
• That power ranger’s Zord
• That thing on your back that you put two swords and then go like this (ninja like sword drawing maneuvers)
• That motorcycle
• That motorcycle too
• A dog with pointy ears
• A robot dog with pointy ears
• That thing that you put on a horse and you ride behind it and do this (indecipherable hand gestures)
•  A REAL power ranger suite
• All of the power ranger Zords
• A remote control Spiderman motorcycle
• That black remote control car that we saw at the store that one time
• A horse thing that you sit on (saddle?)
• That game
• A horse
• That game too
• A real robot that does that thing
• All of the video games
• A lightsaber

Since we live in the future most of the television consumed by our children is via streaming services, thus commercial free. On the rare occasion that Oliver (or any of our kids) does watch television with commercials the request list spikes considerably.

I don’t want to give the impression that our youngest is the only one making these requests.  He’s not.  However, he is the most vocal and repetitive of our quintet. On a slow day, Oliver has a cruising speed of approximately 55 RPH (requests per hour).

We typically acknowledge these requests with a canned, “We’ll see” or “Maybe”, or “Can you draw a picture of it that we can send to Santa?”, or “Maybe if you change the oil in the Subaru we can come to some kind of arrangement.”

We know that this is typical kid behavior. As mind numbing as it can be to hear the same request for the 100th time in a three-hour period we manage the frustration for the constant demands for our attention. He is not always going to ask us for things. There will be a day when he can buy all of his own things and we will be out of the loop. The tricky duality of parenthood is both looking forward to and dreading that day.

Maybe someday science will catch up with my kid’s demands and he can get that lightsaber. By then he will be old enough to responsibly wield it. Until that day, I have some shopping to do. By December 23rd these should be just about ready.

Cheers,

L&P