My son is turning seven this week.  I wrote a post about him two years ago, on the eve of his 5th birthday.  Now five seems like a distant memory, and I have a seven-year-old full-blown boy on my hands.  If you’ve got a child in your life, you will understand the disbelief I’m feeling that another year has flown by.  Time speeds up exponentially when you’ve measure it through the growth of children.

We hemmed and hawed about what to get him.  With Christmas just past, hand-me-downs from older cousins, and the blessing of a comfortable life, there isn’t much that he actually needs.  And while I do think that birthdays are a chance to venture beyond the “need” category and into the “wants,” I felt the unease of excess creeping in.  My heart lies in minimalism and I didn’t feel good about buying more “stuff” just to checkmark a box on the birthday to-do list.  So we did what we often do; we got him a gift of experience.

We surprised him with tickets to Monster Jam in Toronto and dinner at a restaurant afterwards.  Our Sunday was spent with two very excited children, riding the GO train, enjoying the monster truck action, and having a special birthday dinner.  The four of us were together the entire day, adding to our memory banks and learning more about what makes our children so very special, so very unique, so very much our most precious gifts.  We will remember this birthday.  And he will too.

Happy birthday to the kid that’s changed my everything.