Celebrating My Birthday

The day started out great. I already had the day off and planned to spend it all day in front of the TV set in an air conditioned room. But I was wrong. Waking up early and nudging my wife a bit for an early morning activity to which she declared a resounding NO. And anyone who’s been married more than 10 seconds will know what that means.

So I rolled out of bed for a trip to the livingroom to watch some TV and surf the internet for a while. That is until the boys woke up and begged me to play their new Lego Batman 2 game. They wanted me to join in with them but only realizing that it was to look up cheat codes and strategies on how to play the game.  This went on for a few hours.

My wife then gave me my birthday present; a wristwatch. A very good one even though it is too small for me to wear. There was no cake. Except for Little Debbie cakes, birthday cakes tend to grow mold as the remains of it sits in the refrigerator. So we all agrees to just serve ice cream with a candle in it. Afterwards I took a nap.

My wife woke me up saying that it would be a great idea for us to go see a movie. I’m thinking of seeing the Avengers again or Men in Black 3 but I was over ruled and we planned to see PIXAR’s Brave. Not my top five movies to see but a PIXAR movie is worth seeing no matter how bad Cars 2 was (too much Mater).

As the only driver in the family we loaded up the car and after a 25 minute drive we find out the movie theater in Smithfield, NC decided to stop showing the movie due to their inexperience in finding the volume button.  So we drive 27 miles in 100+ degrees weather to the next nearest movie theater in Garner, NC. Parking was easy to find a ¼ mile away from the fully pack movie theater. And as we marched through the parking area of doubled parked cars we reached the ticket booth.

$40 later we were inside as two boys disappeared into the arcade room as my wife drooled over the Expendables 2 movie posters.  We grouped together to see what everyone wanted. And $50 towards a large popcorn, 2 soda’s, big pretzel, mini corn dogs and two hot dogs later we were heading to the theater room as my wife kept complaining that we were too early and she wanted to go back out and look at the movie posters for a while.

I put my foot down and we sat in a vacant theater for about 15 minutes before a flood of people started to enter the room and within a very short time, the place was standing room only. I leaned over to my son and told him that this is why I like to be early for anything. The movie started and for nearly two hours I was greatly entertained.  Afterwards we trekked through the hot sun to our car where we drove home the way we arrived at the movie theater. Listening to all the opening and closing songs to all the Super Sentai TV shows.

Once home, the boys began playing Lego Batman 2, my wife was on the internet watching amateur created videos of computer generated men doing choreograph dancing.  I ate a hamburger from last night’s dinner then got ready for work.  Getting home after the boys were already asleep and my wife was still on the internet, I watched some TV as I fell asleep from having the best birthday I have every year.  And the reason is simple.

All day the boys kept telling me that I don’t look that old. They sang Happy Birthday to me, made me a birthday card, even allowing me to win a few video games. They didn’t fight as typical brothers do, were very well mannered in public. No burping, passing gas or making farting sounds when they saw someone bending over. (I taught them that one.) They even cleaned their room. Well just the Lego pieces but it’s a start.

Even my wife joined in. Being Japanese, she’s not too use to holding hand or showing too much affection compared to couples here in America that can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves when in public. But on my birthday, she held my hand; which is something she does when we walk together.  But this time, as we held hands, she leaned next to me so she could rest her head next to my arm. Gave me the goose bumps in the nice kind of way.

Even coming home from work that night, she was still up waiting for me. Taking my shoes and making me more comfortable, I savored every moment of it. The boys were already asleep so my wife and I finished celebrating my birthday together in our bedroom. Turning this year birthday celebration into another great one for me.  It’s not just the presents and the people you are with but how those moments are used that to me make it more special.