Yep. He’s the one who crawls into my bed after his brother falls asleep and reads next to me for an hour or two; the one who told me that he “just isn’t a sports dude” when I asked if he wanted to sign up for something this fall (but he later came around).

As far as the elaborate parties and expensive child extracurriculars …

The scripture about “ever learning, yet never able to come to a knowlege of the truth” rises prominently to mind. Parents and children rush through life at a frenetic pace, so eager to not miss out on a single opportunity.

Then at the end, they suddenly discover they missed out on so many opportunities that really mattered. They never even noticed.

Like the dad on the family trip who is so busy taking pictures and keeping everyone on schedule that neither he, nor his family really enjoy each other.

What’s the point of photos if you only have mediocre-to-negative memories to attach them to?

We have done birthday parties at the Y. Just fun. Or at home, or scrap the party and they get a special birthday supper and cake and present.

Thanks for the comments. This happened three years ago and I had pretty much forgotten about it until I read the great post on youth karate over at MMW. Simon didn’t seem to realize that he had done anything special and no one said much of anything–just moved on to the next activity. I really don’t know why he was able to break it and I thought about that for a long time (as well as my expectations for the situation).

Tomorrow we’ll celebrate Nathan’s fifth birthday in grandma’s backyard in Utah with all of the cousins.

I am curious, though. If you read “500$” as “five hundred dollars,” how do you read “$500″?