Piper’s birthday is today.  She’s four years old.  She’s a little girl who can turn your head and steal your heart quicker than a lightning bolt’s flash.  She likes to dress up in princess dresses.  She is a princess. She knows she is special.

I’m her grandfather.  I can say these things.

I spent last year’s birthday with her.  I’ll miss this year’s party.  I’m thinking about her today.

“What days are really important to a child?”  was the question of the day last week.

The discussion was lengthy.  I was talking to Sue, my wife.

I was on firm ground.

“I think there are only three really important days for a child, with an option for a fourth.”

First, their birthday.  We start celebrating early, like Year One.

Then there’s Christmas and Easter.  Both are meaningful.  When we celebrate the meanings, we teach the children the importance of  Christmas and Easter.   We celebrate, then we give them junk.

The kids see a lot of  presents and candy.  We are adults.  We talk about a jolly old elf living at the North Pole who spies on them with an elf on a shelf.   Three months later, we’re talking about an egg laying rabbit bearing gifts.  All the while,  forgetting how Google is a hop, click and word search away.

Number four is Halloween.  More Candy and a few ghosts on the side.

And everyone celebrates Christmas, Easter and Halloween, especially Wal-mart and the Dollar General.

The kid’s  birthday is the exception.

Think about it.

Kids are always learning.  They come here with a great big, empty chalkboard and a lot of empty file cabinets.  They start scribbling the day they’re born.  The scribbling becomes boxes and circles. Boxes and circles become dogs and cats, then people with eyes, noses, mouths and ears.

They learn to spell their name and count to ten. They learn their ABC’s.  Sometime later it’s calculus, physics and then love letters.

Piper can spell her name and count to twenty right now.

Of all the days in a child’s life, a birthday has to be the biggest day of the year.

It is Piper’s birthday and she don’t care about any other birthday right now.

Later on, her birthday will tie her to her own childhood.  It is that special. We recall our

It’s a time for her cake and her cookies.  People celebrate Piper.

Yes, others can have the same birth date, but it’s not your birthday or my birthday. It is theirs.

Kids understand that.  Kids learn about birthday’s first.  We ask them how old they are long before they can tell us.  We want to hear the “one” and the “two”, then the “three” and so on.

I will make an exception for twins and triplets.  They operate by different rules. There’s a set of triplets in our family.

Kids want to be a year older.  We teach them to celebrate ever year as a milestone. It is important, believe you me.

Happy Birthday Piper.

 

Please feel free to share.  I welcome your comments and thoughts.  Contact Mike Windham at amwindham100@gmail.com.  You can follow my blog at mikewindham.com.