Pirate in Training

On Saturday Kiernan went to his first birthday party. We decided to have it early. November is going to be a busy month and, well, anyway, people place far too much emphasis in our culture on things like birthdays and Christmas presents and whatnot. We don't want to raise a materialistic child. I mean, we only have one TiVo, and that's all we ever intend to have. So we just decided to have a quiet little celebration with just the three of us. No presents, no party, just a cake made out of hemp and---

Okay. Okay. Joking.

Kiernan has not had his first birthday yet. His mother can stop freaking out now. He's going to have a full blown birthday with all the trimmings at the end of next month. Therefore...his father can start freaking out now.

Especially now that he's seen the video.

What I meant by the first line of this post is that Kiernan attended the first birthday party that he has ever been invited to this past Saturday. The party was for Kiernan's friend Julia who was celebrating turning three years old. The theme: Princesses and Pirates.

Julia is a very cool little girl. I know this because she's my friend too. Now before you start raising eyebrows and getting worried that I'm gonna be one of those dads who is forever co-opting his kid's friends as his own so he can be the cool dad with the Magnum, P.I. mustache--I think you know who I'm talking about, Dad--let me just set your minds at rest. Julia's mother, Brenda, is a colleague of Wendy's. She used to be one of Wendy's students, actually, and now the two of them are friends. Once when Wendy and Brenda were working on some education thingy at the house, Brenda brought Julia along for the day. This was before Kiernan could crawl, or really move at all on his own; we had to constantly hold him and entertain him. As opposed to now, when we have to constantly chase him and entertain him.

So Julia basically had to babysit the two of us, Kiernan and I. She did this with the cunning use of dinosaurs and dresses.

Julia is--or was when she was merely a two-year-old--fond of two things mainly: dinosaurs and Disney princesses. She had this awesome dinosaur A-B-C book--book's title: Dinosaur ABC, if you must know--a board book with a page for each letter of the alphabet, and a dinosaur for each letter. 'B' is for 'Baryonyx' and 'P' is for 'Parasaurolophus'. There are cool facts about each dinosaur and lifelike pictures and little diagrams that are supposed to show how big the dinosaur in question would have been as compared to a person, but which, by the luck of proximity, actually show what appears to be dinosaurs crapping little human beings. Maybe that's done on purpose. Some sort of children's book's editorializing. God I hope not.

Anyway, the book is very cool. And Julia, this extremely sharp little girl, knew how to say all the dinosaur names. From 'Euoplocephalus' to 'Quetzalcoatlus' (basically a way to force your friend and mine, the pterydactyl, to fill the 'Q' slot), she pronounced all of them without a hitch. I could tell because the names were spelled out phonetically on each page. And we must have read each page about three hundred times that afternoon. Julia, in addition to being cool, was also, shall we say, persistent.

But that's not the only way Julia kept me and Kiernan entertained. Oh no. Did I mention that her other passion was Disney Princesses?

Julia also had a collection of Disney Princess dress ornaments. While she was reading the dino-book to us, she hung the dress ornaments on my outstretched hand. One dress suspended from each of my fingers. The other hand held Kiernan. There is a picture of this somewhere. I'm not in a hurry to find it.

So it was Julia's birthday party on Saturday. The theme, as I said, was Princesses and Pirates. Julia went as Belle. Kiernan went as a pirate, as pictured. Wendy took Kiernan to the party. I, alas, missed the affair. But, as I mentioned earlier, I did see a video snippet of the proceedings, and that was enough. Good Lord, was that enough. That thing looked like total pandemonium. Sort of a Blair Witch Birthday Party. [This is NOT a comment on Wendy's camera work--Ed.] Little girls all over the place, resplendent in perfect Disney Princess dresses. Parents moving about after them like slightly more benevolent versions of the characters in a zombie film. One of those ridiculous rented blow up party jumping contraptions taking up most of the back yard. It makes me shiver just thinking about it.

And Wendy cannot wait for it to be our turn. Oh well. At least I have my dinosaur book. I loved Julia's so much--and was so effusive in my praise of it--that she and her mom, Brenda, bought us one after their visit. No matter what happens, I'll always have that. While the book does give Pterydactyl the short end of the stick, at least Triceratops gets his due. The fact that Triceratops beat out T-Rex is a big deal. At least to me.

What pirates have to do with any of this, I have no idea. I do know two things, though.

1. My little boy looks darn good in a pirate outfit.

2. When he sees the above picture and can finally voice what his expression is clearly saying--"Mom...Dad...Why?"--I will calmly say, "Son. I'm sorry. But your mother did it."

I think I'm getting the hang of this parent thing.