Kyle & Owen’s 10th Birthday

• The end-of-the-bed present was just what you wanted: a remote control airplane that could actually fly and that wouldn’t get wrecked within 2 minutes of you playing with it.
• Your sister gave you a whole slew of balsa wood airplanes.
• You were thrilled with your gifts!
• We went to Dunkin’ Donuts on the way to school, which we’d never done before, ever.
• Kids get to bring in a special birthday treat to celebrate with their class at school. We’ve always called this the “school birthday.” This year you chose your current favorite sweets — from Lehigh Catering (!) — blondie bars (Owen) and lemon bars (Kyle). I wasn’t there, but according to all reports these treats were a big hit!
• Mommy and Papi picked you up from school so we could go straight to a nearby park to try out the airplane. It flew awesome! and it didn’t get wrecked!

• For the past many days you’d both been deliberating and debating what to choose for your birthday dinner. I’d have made you anything you wanted, or we could go to the restaurant of your choice. You really struggled with this decision this year; you just could’t figure out what you wanted.
• But I knew, all along, what you’d really choose — if you had even thought it would be an option (but for obvious reasons — it is 90 miles away — you never thought of it as an option). So, in the car, after school pick-up, we announced, “You only live once! And you only turn ten once! We know what you’d choose for your birthday dinner if you could really have what you really want!” You both looked at us in total confusion. And then I said, “We’re going to Joe’s Shanghai!”
• The look on your faces with that announcement were priceless. “We’re driving to Chinatown?” you said. You could not believe that your crazy parents were going to do this. Drive to NYC, on a school night, just to eat dinner at Joe’s Shanghai?!?!
• But oh yes, we did that.
• You were even more surprised when your crazy mother pulled out candles and a lighter, and turned your soup dumplings into a pseudo birthday cake with ten candles on top. It caused quite a commotion as the tiny, packed restaurant caught on to what was happening. The servers all gathered around, chuckling and whispering, thrilled and amazed at this development (many of these guys recognize you, as you’ve been going to Joe’s Shanghai since you were babies, and they LOVE to see the passion and enthusiasm with which you eat their dumplings). We sang Happy Birthday to You, along with most of the restaurant guests and servers. And then you made wishes, and blew out your candles, and proceeded to eat soup dumplings with gusto and flair.
• We set a new family record: 6 baskets of soup dumplings! FYI: the two of you alone ate at least 4 of the six.
• After Joe’s we walked down the street to get Chinese mantou (sweet buns, with condensed milk). We got them to go — for the car ride home.

• At home, we got Meera straight to bed… while you rode your bikes like little maniacs, a million miles an hour, in the pitch dark, enjoying the first night of having campus all to yourselves (students are gone for the summer; their move-out-deadline was 9:00 that morning).
• We ended your 10-year-old-birthday on Sayre Lawn, with our annual birthday sky lanterns, and gratitude to your birthmother.
• It was a beautiful, dark night. We watched the sky lanterns float up and away for a long, long time. Until we couldn’t see them anymore. And you were 100% sure that those sky lanterns went all the way to heaven.
• You had an awesome birthday!
• xoxoxoxo