Today is my son’s 13th birthday and I had planned to dispense with my usual discussion of communication to share a little bit about him with my readers. Here’s part of what I had planned to share.
This is a very fuzzy picture of him winning the Youth Cart Racing League over at K1 Racing. He holds the undefeated title of fastest lap ever at that location in all the years they have been open. This includes some professional race car drivers!
I’d already shared about my daughter’s recent college graduation so I thought I’d give equal time to my son.
I had planned to share my son’s incredible sense of humor and how he had inspired some of my latest JoJoisms, but God has a sense of humor and I just have to share with you how it played out on his birthday–partly because it’s hilarious and partly because it holds some wonderful lessons for us all.
We gave him a birthday party on Saturday where we had planned to serve an ice cream cake. Scrambling around to get ready for everyone’s arrival, I had forgotten to take it out of the freezer to make sure it was thawed by the time we were ready to eat it. Fortunately, my dh reminded me and it wasn’t too late. I put it in the fridge and had planned to take it out into room temperature to help it along.
My dh suggested I leave the cake out in the garage so it would thaw quicker, but I told him that was a bad idea. See, we live in ARIDzona and this is June. It was only 104 that day, but that means that the garage would be about 110 or more so I put it inside the house instead. I came back to it every so often to check, hoping it would be ready to eat. Not finding the cake where I put it, I asked my dh who said he put it in the garage.
Though it had only been in the garage for about ten minutes, the icing melted sliding the blue piping down the edges until it rested on the bottom of the carton. The ice cream inside was oozing out of the corners of the box and the word, birthday, split it two and ran down the side of the cake which now said, “Happy Birtl Day.” Now, you knew there’d be a communication funny in here somewhere, didn’t you? lol
My first reaction was, “I told you so!” But it soon turned to fits of laughter and an urge to capture this film on before the cake became ice cream soup.
My dh’s first reaction was guilt, turning quickly to acceptance as I wasn’t scolding him because I was too busy laughing and trying to find the camera.
We lit only one candle and sang a quick chorus of “Happy Birtl Day” to our son before the cake could slide off the table and drip onto the floor.
We all ate bowls of Birtl Day cake with spoons and had a ball. Later on, my dh did something he rarely does. He admitted, in public, that I was RIGHT and he was WRONG! Ahh…sweet vindication. lol
The moral of the story? Well, there are a few lessons to be learned from this experience.
First and most important: ALWAYS listen to your wife. ;D
Second: if you live in ARIDzona, NEVER leave ice cream cake out in your garage in June.
Third: if something unexpectedly goes wrong, get out your camera and have fun with it. We had such fun with this. In fact, my mom suggested we make new family tradition of Happy Birtl Day for Chris every year. I don’t think he will ever forget his 13th Birtl Day. Do you?
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