Birthday Party

Awesome day today. Paxson's 17th birthday party. Things got rolling around 4:00 when the moonbounce arrived. It's folly enough to rent a moonbounce for a herd of sugar-high 17-yr-olds.  Couple that with an inflatable "castle" half the size of Disneyland on the inclining slope of your backyard and you've got a recipe for fun! That moonbounce was the best 65 bucks I've ever spent. It turned my guarded, "too cool for you" teen back into a kid again. That memory alone is worth every penny spent. 

Next came the rented, yes rented, popcorn machine. Apparently life in a small town has us hard-up for entertainment because we ALL stood around watching that machine only to  clap when it started popping. I kid you not. Scooping the buttery goodness into paperbags was the proverbial cherry on the sunday. 

We continued with a simple hotdog BBQ and topped it off with the bday cake. Thank goodness Dante' had popped into the kitchen earlier to make a blackberry pie. At first I wondered why she was making more mess in the middle of all the chaos. Turns out we had more people than cake!The pie saved the day.

Now I'm left to get ridiculously sentimental and wonder what happened to the sweet little boy who used to hold my hand on walks and pick flowers for me in the park. Paxson is still wonderful, but he is no longer mine. Next year he will be a highschool graduate starting life. Do all moms feel this way when their first born grows up? I want to catch him and hold back the clock for awhile. I want to remember how he smelled at 2 years old, warm and fresh from the bath. I want to rock him in a rocking chair again. Still, the young man I live with now is pretty great. He has a bright mind and a good heart. I pray for his future. Mostly, I am grateful to God for giving me him for as long as I have him.