Welcome back. It is
Monday, May 18, 2020, and we are off and running. Yesterday, we had another birthday in the family neighborhood. Our little Gabriella, (Gabi), became a three year old. Her parents, our granddaughter Brittany and her dad Ryan, recently moved back into our area after him doing a stint in the US Army. They now live not too far from where we live but given the pandemic, we haven't seen that much of them. Yet. She, like most little ones today, is really into role play and this year she is in love with the Disney Frozen franchise. Last year, it was Paw Patrol. They say fun, fun, fun! And, we all become aware of the way it is really done, marketing, marketing, marketing! At any rate, we are so thankful for this child and we pray a blessing over her life and wish her a most happy, happy birthday. Our love, great grands
MiMi and
Poppy. (Sorry to show so many photos with Great Grand Poppy Claus in them, but, if the boots and suit fit, wear them!)
I see the parades of all kinds being promoted to celebrate all kinds of things. Birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, job promotions, and many other notable occasions. These parades are to be in place of scheduled parties where people can be together, closer together than the six feet distancing target. I went to a few birthday parties growing up. We never had them in our family. Don't get me wrong. We always had birthday recognition, but, for the most part, it was just family. We would receive one or two gifts. Never anything extravagant. As I write this I think I remember my older sisters having Sweet Sixteen parties. Maybe. Now you know what's wrong with me: I never had big birthday parties growing up. All I can say about that is to add it to the list. We just didn't do it that way. I've seen videos of the cars going by tooting their horns, hollering out greetings, and slowing down enough to hand a present out the window. I've seen photos posted of little kids surrounded by a mountain of gifts. Our kids had more fanfare to a certain extent, our grands more so, and our great grands way over the top in comparison to how it was back in the day. I'm not saying it is wrong and I am not complaining. I am just making an observation. We typically always got a cake, a present, a good meal, and the family around us singing happy birthday. Nowadays, many have the private family celebration and a subsequent separate public birthday party. I cannot tell a lie, when I got a little older I did begin to enjoy the spin the bottle game, and others like it. Somehow that made going to the party a wee bit more tolerable.
I've seen the posted pleadings of moms who are so worried about their child missing out on something. For crying out loud, mam, they are only two years old! You know what I am talking about. That missing page in their Baby Book. How about missing the entire Baby Book? I know. It sounds like sour grapes but I assure you I have no regrets or bad feelings about the way I was treated in terms of things like my birthday. Of course, my expectations were pretty much engrained and they helped to align my thoughts on the subject. I've tried to think of an instance where I had my heart set on getting something but I didn't. There may have been some of those, but, I can't dig them up at this time. That does not mean I didn't have a load of disappointments along the way. "No. You can't go to the movie tonight." "Forget about that camping trip. I told you I didn't want you hanging out with those boys." "You can't borrow the car tonight because you didn't come home last time when you were supposed to." Stuff like that. Others too. Come to think about it, we had some of that with our boys growing up. History does repeat itself. The more things change the more they stay the same. This is not intended to be one of those where me being the old curmudgeon at large, I stand and curse the winds of change. Not even close. Just sharing. In the same way we learned to say, "Well, bless their heart."
Amen. ....More later.
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