Wolfie's 5th

My little boy turned 5 yesterday. It was a beautiful day, in the mid 70s and not a cloud in the sky. We celebrated with our friends, a bouncy house, a popcorn machine, bubbles flying in the front and balloons swaying in the back. It was as perfect gets.

Prepping for the party was another story. There were cupcakes to make, ice to get, beverages to be bought and pizzas that needed to picked up. Our morning started at 8 am with the doorbell ringing.

I jumped out of bed, knowing exactly who was at the door, but not was what time it was. Our alarm clock suffered a severe injury to its face plate a while back, due to an errant paw from our cat Tuxie. Actually, it was a calculated blow. The cat wanted food, we were asleep and he felt we weren’t moving fast enough. Knocking the clock radio to the ground was the answer.

I put on my pants, found my slippers and shuffled to the door, half asleep. Forgetting to turn off the alarm, I opened the door and the alarm went off. The bouncy house guy laughed at me, it was 8 am. They were an hour early, which was a good thing.

While they set up the bouncy house, Wolfie and I went to get bagels, coffee and money. It was gonna be a long day and we’d need all three to survive. On the way back, I paused to think about the upcoming day and the struggles it would present: the mixing of school parents and our friends, ill-behaved kids fucking up Wolfie’s toys and our house, and trying to remember everybody’s name. All things that made me anxious

I looked in the back seat and Wolfie was high on anticipation. I made a vow to handle all situations and enjoy my son’s 5th birthday. I thought about when he was born and how the past 5 years have been the best of my life. It was a cliché, yes, but the little guy in the back changed my life forever and filled me with love, joy and fear, which wasn’t necessarily bad.

It was a great, great day.