Perfect Day, Perfect Kid

In our household, Monkey Bread stands in for birthday cake. Grandma gets up early enough to make it for breakfast and the birthday boy eats as much of it as he likes. In Logan's case, he ate half of it. Ben took his half, broke it down into its component parts (monkey balls, I think) and intends to share it with his winter drum line buddies at today's all day camp session.

Logan unwrapped his first gift in the morning -- a game of Headbanz -- just like Valery has. We'll try playing it tomorrow at his birthday feast. Birthdays are all about food for Logan. The edible gift from Colleen didn't survive until the actual birthday- the tower of cookies and candy were consumed within 48 hours. He defines a perfect day as one that includes all his favorite foods. So, he had mac and cheese with ham and peas for lunch. His favorite dinner menu has to wait until tomorrow. Tonight we ate at Red Lobster so he could have calamari and try crab. He liked the snow crab legs a lot -- imagine how he would enjoy dungeness crab!

I think he liked playing with the crab claw even more than he liked the food. He's still not entirely grown up! He's wearing the shirt Valery gave him for his birthday. Other birthday gifts included some new jeans and some time with a personal trainer for weight training. Now that he's fourteen, he's old enough to use the weights at the Community Center. I measured him at exactly six feet tall, but I'm not sure how accurate that is because I'm so much shorter, it's hard to get an accurate reading.

At fourteen he is still a very sweet person, kind, considerate, observant, personable, bright, funny, and addicted to World of Warcraft. He says he wants to be a lawyer and he wants to go to Harvard (his idea, not mine!). He gets all A's, loves playing football, enjoys art classes, and speech and debate. Also thinks he might like to participate in JROTC in high school. He's a bit right-leaning in his political thinking and clearly not entirely under my influence. In part I think he reflects the local culture, he certainly sounds like a local when he talks. He has picked up a bit of a Missouri drawl and it always surprises me when I realize that's just the way he talks, he's not putting me on. I love that boy!