Red birthday

Well, my son just turned 5 years old and his only request for his party was a red cake. He decided after some suggestions from his father that cowboys would be fun, so we're going with that too. Even as I write, Benjamin is out at his first rodeo with JB, both in their cowboy best: boots, hats and all.

And even as we speak I am looking at the results of the red cake. Poor Ben. Red is always his color of choice: red shoes, red shirt with red shorts ("Look, they match!"), red bike, red plate and water bottle. But red cake! We found out the hard way this afternoon that red food coloring does not equal red frosting.

Even as I continued to apply the frosting to the mini-cupcakes for school tomorrow, I was thinking that he would never agree to take what are pretty much pink cupcakes to school for his birthday. And so I said to Benjamin, "Well, this is the best I could do. They are not very red are they?" Ben kind of shrugged his shoulders and said with a little smile, "Yeah, that's the best you could do. It's ok. Yeah, I like it." I have to say that was very gracious of him.

Even for the birthday party, Ben wanted to mix orange and pink for the frosting. 

That gracious and easy-going spirit will lead to a happy life, my boy.

I think he enjoyed his cowboy birthday party, complete with all sorts of gear borrowed from the REAL cowboy that we know. Benjamin doesn't realize how lucky he is. I did not grow up in a world in which one could know a REAL cowboy. Since JB grew up going out to his family's dairy farm, I guess Ben comes by cowboy culture honestly (if a bit nostalgically) too. 

Panning for gold was a surprisingly big hit. 

Another thing that has become clear about Benjamin in his fifth year is his interest in mechanical things. There was no denying this after he and my dad spent whole mornings together sitting with an old coffee maker and then an old computer (below) taking it apart and (trying) to put it together again. I love to see him find so much joy in these kinds of projects even though heaven knows it's not my area of giftedness. It's good to have a grandpa who shares his interest (and who saves broken appliances!). 

Along the same vein, the birthday gift he's gotten most excited about seems to be the camera JB and I gave him. It's actually a compact digital camera that we've had for a while but don't use anymore--we mainly use our phones and then the big camera if we're feeling ambitious. He has discovered more about what the camera does in a few days than we ever figured out. I'll feel even better about this gift when the neck strap comes in the mail today or tomorrow : ) 

"And for MY birthday we're gonna have purple cake and balloons and..."