The stay-at-home dad Quarantine birthday for the 5-year-old Wild Card
Quarantine birthday for the 5-year-old Wild Card
When you spend a month in lockdown, even a little extra effort can make a big difference.
Our youngest daughter turned 5 last week. No celebration with her preschool classmates. The grandparents stayed away (though they made frequent video appearances via the Marco Polo app). And no birthday balloons. Mom and Dad forgot to add the traditional decorations to the grocery pickup order.
Still, she had an amazing birthday, mostly because the bar for success was extremely low.
We call our newly minted 5-year-old the “Wild Card” of the house. She’s spunky and strong-willed, and you never quite know how she’s going to react to any given situation.
Lucky for us, the things she really wanted for her birthday this year were easy to execute. Maybe a little too easy. Wait, what’s the catch? Now I fear that I might owe her some giant favor in the near future.
Her expectations have essentially been the same for months, long before we knew we’d be under voluntary house arrest. Her gift requests: Pink sunglasses and a pink Razor scooter to match her sister. She lives the FOMO lifestyle 24/7, so we always know what she wants just based on what her sister got for Christmas.
Party Request 1: Make her own cake. Pink frosting. Thanks to many (very messy) cooking sessions with Grandma, she actually knows how to do most of her own baking. Boom. Easy. I preheated the oven and searched the Internet for “Tiger King” updates the rest of the time.
Party Request 2: Go for a drive in the car with Dad. This sounds sweet, but she only wanted to do this because Mom mentioned the day before that one of us would need to take her for a drive so the other parent could wrap presents. Still, she chose me for the ride, which means I didn’t have to
wrap anything.
Dinner request: Chicken nuggets, rice and a can of tri-colored beans. Can you tell she’s adjusted well to the “quarantine diet?”
Final request: Stay up late and watch “Frozen II.” We bought her a copy of “Dora and the Lost City of Gold” (a surprisingly solid movie from last year that she also loved) in the hopes that she would call an audible, but alas, she opted to watch Elsa again. More time for Dad to find out what’s happening with Carole Baskin!
I don’t want to brag, but we nailed the whole experience. The other kids even decided to be nice to their sister for the entire day. This is actually a pretty big deal, because the Wild Card throws wrenches (or play dishware) into most of the older siblings’ activities, especially since regular school got cancelled.
The other kids also decorated the entire living area of the house with their sister’s massive collection of stuffed farm animals, elephants and unicorns. They hung a “Frozen” themed blanket and a “Doc McStuffins” bed sheet as window decor. And they really were nice to her the whole day!
The kids stayed up way late for the movie, then got up at 6 a.m. (as usual) the next morning. So the next day sucked. Everyone was tired and cranky, and “school time” quickly got replaced with more “Frozen II.” We actually call that a typical Wednesday during Pandemic 2020.
Still, the little Wild Card had her day to feel extra, extra special. She got everything she wanted and even said it was the “Best Birthday Ever.” Thanks for making it easy on us, kid. We know you won’t be so lenient the next time.
I’m making plans for my birthday to be equally successful later this month. Gift request: Noise-cancelling headphones (for four obvious reasons). Meal request: Anything so long as I don’t have to serve it to them. Activity request: Sleep in and day drink. These plans would be the same with or without the virus.