Pinball Wizard

Every April, Daniel's school celebrates "The Month of the Young Child" by giving each child a special day on which he or she brings in pictures, favorite books, and a snack to share with the class. Parents are invited to come in and read to the class or do a project with the child. Since Daniel's birthday is in April, for the past three years his teachers have assigned his birthday as his special day. Last year Tab went, so this year it was my turn.

I put together a little collage of pictures and words representing some of Daniel's favorite things (friends, K'Nex, Legos, swimming, chess, etc.) On Monday night I baked cupcakes, which Mom and I decorated the next morning with icing I'd colored green (Daniel's favorite color). Then Stephanie arrived to stay with the boys, and I drove to Daniel's school.

"Daniel's mom has brought our snack," said Miss Dawn when I walked in. "Line up to wash your hands."

"You can get in front of me," offered Morgan, one of the kindergarten girls. (Daniel's class consists of his two fellow first graders and seven kindergartners.) I trooped along, feeling absurdly tall, like Snow White lining up with the Seven Dwarfs at the sink.

After the cupcakes, Daniel displayed his Pokémon collection to the class. The class sat on the mat, and Daniel sat on a chair with his notebook on his lap. He turned the pages and pointed to each card in turn. "This is Charmander. Here is Rapidash. Here is Jigglypuff. And this is Charizard...." The kids were transfixed by the sight. Some of them got up on their knees and inched forward little by little until Miss Dawn told them all to sit down again.

Afterward, Daniel and I painted a plaster of Paris cast of his hand and worked on a special book of memories. It was a full morning; I was worn out by the time I left.

We opted not to have a big party for Daniel this year; we had one last year and we'll probably have one next year, but with money being tight right now, we decided to skip the big production. As a compromise, we told Daniel that we would all go out to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner.

Tuesday night is a good night to go there. The place was less than two thirds full. The boys played in the maze until the pizza arrived. After we ate, Tab divided up the tokens among the three boys and each of us grownups--Tab, my mother-in-law, and I--each took one boy and his tokens into the arcade area.

I hung out with the birthday boy himself, who discovered the joy of pinball last night. His favorite pinball machine was the Star Wars one, natch. I played it a few times myself; it was kind of cool the way the machine used sound effects from the movies. Tab happened to be nearby when Daniel had a particularly good run on the Star Wars machine and laughed when he heard the voice of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader declaim, "The Force is strong with this one!"

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