Birthday Parties, Billy Graham, & an Ideal Older Brother

Oh my, have we had birthday parties. Carter got his Golden Corral birthday party. His Mimi and Doc, Aunt Katie and Alan, Aunt Eva, Mimi and Papa, Daddy, Mama and Will were all there. Carter was so excited to get to eat whatever he wanted. Carter showed everyone to where they should sit and eagerly opened his presents. He got to pick out 6 different desserts, each with a candle - that's 5 and one to grow on.


Then, when he got home, Mr. Kelley came over and Daddy helped him put up his swings attachment to his clubhouse. Mimi and Papa got the clubhouse for his birthday last year and this year they provided the swings. It was like Christmas all over again, but possible better since he was the sole center of attention. He and Will have played outside on it every single day since last Saturday. They love it. Will's not so sure about the swing, but I'm sure he'll come around. We all took a turn on the swings. First me, then Daddy, and the Mr. Kelley. What a wonderful feeling to swing.


His birthday happened to coincide with Spring Break. That meant that he got to celebrate even some more at school this week. Each child may bring special napkins for lunch the day they celebrate their birthday. Then they get some special treats from their teachers. Nathan took him to the party store to pick out his special Birthday napkins for class. I admit that I kind of wondered what they would return with because Nathan always has money saving ideas for every project. He had already tortured me with saying "What about Chick-Fil-A napkins?" Many more suggestions were offered until I finally made it clear that we could easily afford two packages of napkins. But I still prepared myself for what they would return with.

I was shopping with Will when they picked me up. Nathan said "just wait until you see the great napkins Carter picked out." See, all kinds of red flags went up. I knew it was a story. I started to question Nathan but he insisted "Carter picked them out -all-by-himself. Just wait." I climbed in the car and looked inside the bag. There was a large package of white napkins with a stained glass cross on them. Under the cross was the word "Communion." I was pretty confused. Nathan could tell there were thousands of questions running through my head so he started explaining, "We looked at every napkin in there. He didn't want Lightnin' McQueen because someone had already brought those, and Spiderman, and all the others. He saw these and liked them. He asked me what it said and I told him and explained what it meant. Then he said 'Kids can't read that anyway, right?'" I started chuckling and told Carter the napkins were beautiful.

So, now I had to take these napkins in and wonder if his teacher and classmates were going to think he was crazy. I walked him and assured his teacher that he picked him out all by himself. She smiled as though she'd seen it all. Will and I traveled on down the hall to the office to drop off tuition and as we returned I glanced in the room and his teacher said "They fit him." What? What did that mean? I could only imagine why his teacher would think that a stained glass cross with the word communion on it would fit Carter. So, then today, she told me that yesterday at their staff meeting the Pastor prayed for the workers and said "please be with these ladies because we don't know if one of these children might be the next Billy Graham." Once the prayer was over, Mrs. Barlow and Mrs. Cooper looked at each other and said "Carter." I smiled and asked "Has he been evangelizing again?" She shook her head and smiled affectionately and said "No. It's the way he thinks about things." My little theologian.

Through all of this, Will keeps on trucking. He says so many things now its amazing and he makes it obvious that he fully understands what we say. He's strong willed, but affectionate, funny, and loves animals. He loves to have books read to him and could sit for hours if someone would continually read to him. His favorite are Curious George, which he calls Coco becauase that is how it is in his German version his daddy brought him from Switzerland. So, we read a lot about Coco. These books have like 50 pages in them and that is NO exaggeration. I push "Goodnight Moon" and short books like that where we can point at things. But no. He drags yellow-backed books to me and sweetly says "Coco. Coco." I refused to read to him today as we were getting Nathan ready to fly out to Hong Kong. I felt bad but it had to be done. Carter said "come on Will. I'll read to you." Carter picked up Curious George and the Ice Cream Parlor and he "read" the whole thing to him!! He has the book memorized almost word for word! Nathan and I just sat amazed. Nathan said "He has that book memorized better than I can read it!" He read two more Coco books to him. What a great big brother.