Nathan's Birthday

The search for Nathan's birthday cake began on Hyrum's birthday when Nathan picked the cake for Hyrum: Strawberry. We made it together. He helped me wash and cut the strawberries, mix and bake the cake, plop dollops of glaze, crumbled cake and strawberries in layers and he even chose the strawberry ice cream to go with it. When it came time to eat the cake Nathan left the cake, glaze and ice cream in his bowl and only ate the strawberries.

I was stumped. What kind of birthday cake can you make for a kid who doesn't like cake, or many sweets at all for that matter? I would have given up on the cake tradition altogether if he hadn't kept asking when we would make his birthday cake. Everyone gets birthday cake on their birthday and even at 3 he understood that. But what kind of cake would Nathan eat? The search began and this is what I found:

It even has 3 candles on it for his 3rd birthday!

When I showed it to Nathan his comment was: "it yooks yummy! Let's make it right now".

Ok - all of you that are dying at the fact that I would give my kid broccoli for his birthday, I didn't. Instead, I decided to try fruit pizza.

You should have seen his excitement, and his snitching, as I washed and cut all that fruit! And he was thrilled with the Tigger, Pooh and Honey Pot candles (excited enough to pack them around for the 4 days following his birthday). So when it came time to eat the cake Nathan quietly ate one bite and then proceeded to pick all the fruit off leaving a bare, creamy cookie behind. Still not a 100% winner for Nathan. Maybe I should have gone with the broccoli.

The cake may have fallen short of his birthday expectations but his gift did not. Winner all the way! It is still being worn, packed around, flown in, and it is soooo very dirty!

During the Saturday afternoon session of conference I locked myself in the guestroom with a radio, my sewing machine, fabric and a picture from the internet that I intended to transform into a 3 year old dream. This was my picture:

To explain a little, Nathan is hooked on Greatest American Hero. Not many people remember it because it ran from 1981 to 1983 and most of our our friends are enough younger than we are that they have no idea who the superhero Ralph is. Well Nathan knows. He checks the mail every day watching for the next Netflix envelope that he hopes will have Ralph in it. He cries when it is time to send the Netflix envelope back with Ralph in it. He is the only one who can carry the Netflix envelope with Ralph in it. It really is insane.

While I was in Peru he was staying at a friends house for the day and he kept telling her that he wanted to watch Ralph. She named all the kids shows she could think of and none of them were right. He finally went to her video cabinet and pulled down the 1st season of the Greatest American Hero and said again "I want to watch Ralph". I couldn't believe his good fortune. How many people even own the show? So as I thought of what to do for Nathan for his birthday, the only thing that came to mind was to take his imagination to the next level and make it real.

This is the result:

100% WINNER! For the past month he was been putting on and wearing his imaginary suit and saving it in it's imaginary case so actually seeing and wearing it must have seemed so wonderful! He kept rubbing the belt and touching the cape almost in disbelief that he really had a visible suit to wear. It didn't take him long to realize that it was real and it was his to keep. The bribing and persuading we had to do to get him to come from flying was beyond crazy.

That suit has changed his walk. When he has it on he not only struts like a really cool 3 year old but he has this shoulder action that goes with it, similar to swaying hips but with his shoulders. What confidence it has given this quiet little man!

Maybe a little too much confidence . . .

I was washing Hyrum up after his cake (of which he ate every bite!) and when I finished I glanced into the back yard and Nathan wasn't there anymore. I looked around to the side of the house and couldn't find him. I went to the front of the house and he was 3 houses away flying down the street ! Once I caught up with him I asked what he was doing and his very matter-of-fact reply was, "I'm saving the world!". We went clear around the block, stopping to show his "suit" to his friend Camden and many of the neighbors that were outside. It was a great first day flying and he hasn't stopped since.

He still packs around the black shoe box that it was wrapped in and he changes in and out of his suit several times a day, just like Ralph does in each episode. He always puts it in the box in the same order: cape, pants, shirt, belt. It sits by his bed at night, it sits on the table while he eats, it goes in the Yukon with us while we run errands, it almost went to church with us. I think he likes it!

Happy Birthday my little superhero!