The Man-Child is 16

Truly, I cannot do a sweet, sentimental birthday post for Brishen.  16 is just too doggone close to 18.  If I start to go on all about who Brishen is in our lives, I will cry and cry and cry and cry.  I've been thinking about all I want to say to him the last couple days, and it's hard to find the words for how proud I am of the man he is becoming.  He can drive me crazy with Weird Al and Calvin and Hobbes quotes, it's true, but he is beyond amazing in so many ways, so I forgive him (and forbid him to start a sentence with "Weird Al...".  There will be a time when I want to go into all the details of Brishen and how he wows me, but today I'll stick with birthday pictures.

 We have a tradition of letting the kids open their biggest gift as soon as they enter the world of the world of the wide eyed.  Brishen's biggest gift this year was really big.  When Edison saw it, he said, "maybe it should be Edison's birthday."

Inside the giant box was one of Brishen's more recent requests of the last few months.  He has asked for building sets and books for as long as anyone can remember, so when we heard him start to ask for a bass guitar, our ears perked.  I love, love, love that he is wanting to start something so very new to him.  I hope he keeps that spirit of adventure always!  By the way, now ALL my kids want a bass guitar just like Brishen's.  

I love that I got a picture where he is about to laugh.  Let's just say he is not amused by posing with a little chalk board, so I got lucky!

His birthday fell on a very busy day for us this year.  Our goal is to take each birthday child out for a birthday meal alone with the parents.  We had exactly one hour between Brishen's class ending and time to pick up the middle kids from preschool.  That wasn't enough time to take him to any cool restaurant, so we took him to Bob O's for some rounds of laser tag.  Jon and I were quite nice to him and let Brishen obliterate us twice.  It's the least we could do on his birthday.  Jon was also nice enough to prove that he is the older of us by injuring himself during the battles.  

 The battles continued once we got home.  Brishen shares his weapon stash with his younger siblings only on rare occasions, so they are quite pleased and violent when he hands them out.  They loved ganging up on big brother.

Since the day was so busy with only brief moments at home, we decided to do his cake with grandparents at their house tomorrow.  Instead we took him for some ice cream after his driver's ed class tonight.  There were messy faces galore, but Brishen has managed to get most of it inside his mouth after 16 years.  Maybe there's hope for all of them.

On the gift side, Brishen also got building sets, an iPad mini, a game expansion set, snotty funny t-shirts, a book, and a couple other little items.  I believe he had a good day and even gets to celebrate some more tomorrow, so he's not likely to complain.  Happy number 16, my son!