Ninja Team Six

One of the things that you notice as you're chasing, tickling, diapering your second kid:  you didn't fully appreciate how awesome it was to be chasing, tickling diapering your first kid.  At least not in the context of the "they'll never be this small and cute again."  Because you have no context.

And now your first kid is six.  And while he'll never be that small again, I'll be damned if he isn't still the cutest most awesome kid on the planet.

Let me tell you about last Saturday - heretofore known as the Greatest Saturday Ever.  It started off with Finn's first little league game.  This is a big deal, given that we never actually played a tee-ball game, making this Finn's first time on a competitive baseball diamond.  Let's be clear:  we don't keep score in this league (they won 6-3) and we care far more about the effort they put in, than their batting average (Finn went 2 for 2 - though he did have to be physically steered toward first base), so it was a great day and a win all around no matter the results.  Even though we weren't keeping track.  Officially.

We then went home and completely rebuilt a wooden retaining wall on the side of our house together.  And by "together" I mean that I rebuilt the wall while Finn meticulously and painstakingly deconstructed every rotten piece of wood that I removed by alternately smashing it with a hammer, a chisel and/or a shovel.  We're a good team.

But that wasn't all.  To top it off, Finn and I had a Daddy/Finny date at the Lego Movie that evening, where we ate popcorn for dinner, laughed out loud (and maybe cried a little bit at the end - just sayin', it was touching), and then ate Chicken McNuggets for dessert on the drive home.

A crippling stomachache is apparently a sign of a successful Father/Son evening.

And now today, Finn turns 6.  Kitty and I ate cupcakes with him at school and then she whisked him away to a Mommy/Finny date at the EMP Lego exhibit (click the link) where he built amazing Lego sculptures that I'm sure looked like houses (per the picture above), but were in some way related to guns, laser guns, nuclear guns and/or nuclear laser guns.   While I'm sad that I missed that, I'm glad that his Mom got a day that was as awesome as my day last weekend.

So to my son, who will never be 5 again, I love you more than my sarcastic little fingers can possibly express.  You make my weekends worth waking up for, even if it's only to clean up all of the destruction that you leave in your wake.

I love you.

Happy Birthday.