A Decade

Matthew’s birthday was this week. He is ten. Double digits. Wow, time flies. Anyway, like always, we had several celebrations. Last Sunday we celebrated with my family. Matthew has been neck deep in Harry Potter books lately so that was his chosen theme. We created a Harry Potter cake and although the cake itself was not quite done in the center (I was using a different recipe than I’ve used for layer cakes in the past and I wasn’t feeling well and made a bad judgement call where taking the cake out of the oven was concerned), I was pretty pleased with how it looked.

On the morning of his actual birthday, Matthew as in a great mood. He got ready for school in record time and as we were getting ready to walk out the door he said, “This is a good day for a birthday. It’s sunny, I have scouts, I feel older, it’s just awesome!” I totally laughed. I couldn’t help it. He did get to go to his very first Webelos meeting on his actual birthday and we had stove top lasagna (his favorite meal) for dinner.

This afternoon we had his friend party. Again, the theme was Harry Potter. Matthew really wanted to play quidditch and the forecast predicted rain so we had his party at the church. Matthew made wands for everyone and we played several Harry Potter themed games (pin the patronus on the dementor, levitating balloons with their wands, transforming into animals for charades, quidditch). Instead of making fancy cupcakes, we had the kids decorate their own cupcakes and called it potions class. The boys all loved the potion-like ingredient names: red frosting was dragon’s blood, green was pond slime, etc. That kind of gross is perfect for 10-year-old boys! I think they had a good time and we sent them home with an assortment of Harry Potter themed treats.

Matthew has actually grown quite a bit this year. He is still short, but he is currently not the shortest one in his class (he is the 3rd shortest). He is still a huge sports fan and all the 4th and 5th grade boys in our ward have formed teams and have been playing football all winter. He is an integral part of their group and I love that they show up at our door nearly every day to get him. Boston, Matthew’s best friend, has moved so even though he is still at the same school, he is not available to play every afternoon and Matthew was getting a bit lonely. So I’m grateful. Although he still knows how to push every single one of my frustration and irritation buttons, he is not choosing to push them all as frequently and that had made our home life much calmer. He is still trying to get a firm grasp on the idea of being responsible and getting the work done fast so he can play, but he’s making progress. And he is still a 10-year-old boy. He’s not supposed to have everything figured out yet. He has a highly contagious laugh and we are very glad he is in our family.