One of my sons had a birthday recently. Birthdays are a big deal when you are in grade school. At his school you get to be a sort of king for the day and have a mini party in your classroom. Each year he requests that we bring a different treat for his birthday. One year it was cupcakes, another it was cookies. He had this year’s birthday celebration planned for weeks. He wanted us to take sprinkle donuts in a variety of flavors.
The day of his birthday rolled around and he was sick. Really sick.
If you’ve been watching the news lately you know that the Norovirus is going around. It has been going through the boys’ school like wildfire. My son caught it big time and we hadn’t even eaten at a certain popular restaurant chain. Instead of laughing and playing with his friends on his special day, he spent the day curled up in the fetal position watching Last Man Standing on Netflix between bouts of being sick.
“This is the worst birthday ever,” he moaned.
I told him that I hoped that it would be the worst birthday he would ever have.
“That’s a terrible thing to say to me,” he complained.
“No it isn’t,” I assured him. “It means that I hope that every birthday from now on is better than this one. That you’re never stuck at home, sick on your birthday ever again.”
This made him smile for the first time that whole day. He then told me that there was one thing about his birthday that wasn’t terrible: that he got to spend the entire day with me. He then cuddled closer as we continued watching our show. It was incredibly sweet. The only thing sweeter was that he spent the entire next day taking care of me when I came down with the virus. We spent that entire day much like we had the day before: curled up in bed, watching shows on Netflix.
He did eventually get his class party with sprinkle donuts. It was just delayed by a couple of days.