Jay's Birthday

"It's not every day that your young man turns eleven." --Rubeus Hagrid in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Scanning the pages of HP book one made me relatively certain that this quote is only spoken in the movie, not the book, sadly.  I have been holding onto Hagrid's movie-quote for the past few years in anticipation of Jay's eleventh birthday, and at last the day came. Thursday, May 21st was Jay's day. He turned eleven in his calm collected easygoing way. No fanfare or dramatics; just a boy joyfully digging into a pile of new books wearing his new toy sword. We love our Jay!

On his birthday morning, Jay insisted that we have family scripture and prayer time before he opened his presents. Before all of that even happened, though, I woke up early and logged onto Amazon to purchase Jay's birthday e-books to send to his Kindle. A few minutes after I bought the first book, Jay came into my room and said "Thank you for the new book! I've already started reading it and it's good!" He caught me! I quickly finished my birthday book business on Amazon and we moved forward with Jay's day. 

A few weeks before his birthday, Jay submitted a list of birthday wishes. It was adorably simple. Basically, he wanted books, a sword, pencils, a filing cabinet, and duct tape. We followed through, and used really big gift bags to wrap the non-digital items, since the bulk of his gifts were digital Kindle books. Jay was pleased to unwrap a large package of mechanical pencils, a massive roll of black duct tape, a 700-page capacity expanding file folder, and a sword with a dragon shaped scabbard. The rest of his gifts were books, books, books! I researched highly rated clean kids' fantasy up one side and down the other, and ended up getting three series with good reviews and affordable prices. Jay has been voraciously feasting on his 15 new books all week. He said "I'm not sure if my new books are going to last me until June."

For the tenth year in a row, Jay requested homemade macaroni and cheese for his birthday dinner. He said "I wonder how long mac will be my favorite food." He had cream filled donuts for his birthday cake. Jeff journeyed a 40 minute drive all the way to Krispy Kreme to get the good stuff rather than soggy local Walmart donuts. All day we let Jay be "in charge" a little. It was half a joke, but every time there was a decision to be made, whether it was who would say the prayer at a meal or something else more trivial, we asked Jay. He only had to make a handful of such decisions, but by the end of the day he admitted to some decision fatigue and was happy to hand the burden of responsibility back over to his parents. 

Our boy! He has quarantine hair. Even though I am his only barber, he has opted to grow his hair out until the official end of online school in mid-June. It has been nearly six months since his last haircut!

Obligatory birthday throwback picture. Jay is such a good test subject for mine and Jeff's parenting prowess. He submits to all of our inventive child rearing schemes so patiently. 

The birthday interview. I started doing these birthday interviews when Jay was five. This was the first year that some of the questions began to feel a tad young for him. Sniff. Jay really has grown a ton physically and emotionally in the past year. Sniff sniff.

Front porch birthday photo shoot. Jay was the one to remind me that we needed to take his traditional birthday picture for the interview page. From a boy who has no love of cameras, it was a surprise! He said "you're going to have to make me laugh so I can smile for the picture." Since I'm not the pomp-and-circumstance type, we don't have many birthday traditions, but I love how excited the kids get about the few we do have. It was with great ceremony that we took Jay's picture, printed off the birthday interview, filled it out, and hung it beneath the birthday banner. That along with gifts, the power to choose the birthday dinner and dessert sum up our meager, though beloved, family birthday traditions. 

Ready for family scripture and prayer on the birthday morning. Jay wore the same clothes on his birthday that he wore the day before. I'd blame it on the quarantine, but really it's kind of the norm around here when we don't have school.

The gifts!! The banner! The interview! The boy!

Amber was somehow simultaneously excited that it was Jay's birthday and devastated that it was not her birthday. It was a complicated mix of emotions, and I spent a lot of time explaining that her birthday wasn't for another six months.

Rose picked out a dragon sword set for Jay. He loved it.

Grama Meri sent the traditional birthday book to add to Jay's stash.

After swordplay, Jay went to work organizing his endless dungeons and dragons papers into his new file folder.

Jay feels like a true dungeonmaster now, with his organized file of paperwork and the much-anticipated third book in the trio of dungeons and dragons guidebooks.

We put two candles in a donut so it looked like the number 11. I was surprised when the picture snapped with one candle blown out and one still aflame. 

I attempted to take my yearly birthday mother-child picture, but chaos was reigning all around in the form of Queen Amber, and we struggled to get a non-blurry shot. Amber kept attacking Jay from behind right when I pressed the camera button.

The girls refused to be left out of the selfie-with-mom.

Finally we had Amber take our picture for us, to stop her siege.

Whereupon I mounted a tickle-attack of my own.