Happy Birthday Sunshine

My eldest boy, Daniel, celebrates his seventh birthday this weekend.
According to him something weird happens when you turn seven in that you magically and mysteriously grow up overnight. A boy in his class told him that when you turn seven you wake up two feet taller, two years wiser and your mother, who the night before was the light of your life, is suddenly a total and utter embarrassment.
This is the same little chap who told my boy that blood sucking vampire bats can fly into your room at night if you leave your window open and that zombies frequently reside in bedroom cupboards.
This little boy may think he’s a mini Derek Ancorrah but judging by the failure of his previous predictions to come true I’ll not be rushing our and buying my boy longer trousers or more advanced books. As for me becoming an embarrassment, I’ll not be swapping my work clobber for nightwear and turning up at the school gates in my pyjamas to pick him up.
Yes, I’d say the morning of his seventh birthday should be pretty much run-of-the-mill normal.
For the past few years we’ve hired a bouncy castle and a magician for the boy’s big day. This year he has decided that he’s too mature for that and secretly persuaded the husband to order him a mammoth inflatable obstacle course for the back garden.
The thing has a huge nine-foot high slide, rope bridges and various other death-defying accessories. The husband was thinking of complimenting the heart-stoppingly dangerous looking (but completely safe, he assures me) contraption with some flaming fiery hoops that the kids can jump through on their bikes and maybe even a live tiger, so that they can stick their heads in it’s mouth for a picture.
So it’s all booked and paid for and that is precisely why he turned to his father this time. If it were up to me I’d have them simply running around the garden, kneepads, helmets and factor 50 sunblock in place. The boy knew I would never have allowed an inflatable contraption, which wouldn’t look too out of place on one of those Chinese torture game shows, to take centre stage at his birthday party.
Maybe I am an overprotective mum, maybe with my constant insistence that he doesn’t put himself in unnecessary mortal peril makes me an embarrassment.
Seven years ago this week I remember ordering the husband to drive no faster than 20 mph back from the hospital while our precious cargo was in his new baby car seat in the back. Now the child’s going to be hurtling down a mammoth nine-foot high inflatable slide side at approx 70mph, no doubt while stuffing cake in his mouth. How times change, how my boy has grown up.
Happy birthday sunshine.
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