So my oldest, affectionately nicknamed “El Surfeador,” will be twenty years old on Saturday. 20 on the 20th. His golden birthday. He’s at home, in the U.S., and we’re here, in Spain. Here were a few things I did to help him start enjoying the epic Two-Oh, just two days away! (Wow.)
One. Maybe six weeks ago, I emailed all kinds of people who had been important to him, and I invited them to shoot him a card for his birthday. A couple of weeks ago, I sent a reminder email. My hope is that he’ll get somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty birthday cards. A friend at home gave me the idea: she invited friends to do the same thing when her daughter was turning eighteen last fall. So exciting, that he’ll be receiving birthday wishes from all kinds of people who have meant the world to him!
Two. My other three kids–Goose, Miss Zinnia, and Miss Lavender–sang him some birthday songs, and the Eleven O’Clock Dad filmed them. The video went into an email attachment and then into the inbox of a new Acqaintance, Treat-maker, and Co-conspirator I happened to stumble across . . . who happens to live near my son. (Funny, how those coincidences happen!) When my son “happens” by her home on his birthday (there will be a pretext, of course), she and her husband will open the attachment for him so he can hear his siblings sing to him on His Day. Surprise!
Three. The package. All this week, he is opening gifts we sent him in a birthday package–one a day: things like antique peseta notes (Spanish bills), some dating to the 1920’s, that he can use for bookmarks; a #10 Lionel Messi wind-up action figure (with very sweet moves); two professional yo-yo’s, and other bits of utterly (un)Necessary Nonsense.
Four. A couple of days ago, we all emailed him our own list of twenty things we love about him. Goose’s was priceless. Among his twenty to his older brother: You’re awesome, You can kick a ball hard and far, You’re one energetic kid in a man’s body, and “I am happy you were born.”
I realized some of you may be far from children whose birthdays are coming up, and, being an inveterate Idea Thief myself, I thought you might want to steal a couple of these if they worked for you. Or maybe you’ve sent your own Love to birthday kids who are far away? I’d love to know!
(Photo: The Kids, on the day El Surfeador reported to the missionary training center in Provo, Utah. He began serving as a missionary for the Mormon church last August and will finish in August of 2014.)
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