The Singing Cyclist

Yesterday my son, William celebrated his 8th birthday at the Chattahoochee Nature Center near where we live. I never would have thought to have a birthday party at a nature center, but having done it - I must say that I was impressed. Kudos to my lovely wife for thinking of this.

We celebrated in style with a visit from a baby screech owl that had been injured by a run in with a car and with a trip inside an inflatable planaterium. It was really quite nice.

I don't know how much time you spend around 8 year old boys, but I find myself spending more and more time with them and I'm quite amazed with some of the things these kids come up with. There was a very good cross section of the community represented at the party. We had family, friends from school and cub scout buddies. We had Christians, Jews and Muslims. Native Americans, Indians and Caucasians. So here's one little excerpt from the party that I found remarkable and priceless - Art Linkletter would have been proud:

There was a little Indian boy at the party whose parents we love dearly. The little boy came up to me several times and told me that he didn't like chocolate, but all we had for party food was stuff that the nature center had provided - which all contained chocolate. The little boy went on for quite a while with his friends at the table about how he didn't like chocolate. He definitely got his point accross as I heard one of the little caucasian boys say:

"I don't get it - you're made of chocolate and you don't like chocolate!"

At this point, I was embarrased and wondering how to handle this one.

The Indian boy didn't miss a beat and returned with :

"You're made of VANILLA and you like CHOCOLATE, I'm made of CHOCOLATE and I like VANILLA!"

Hard to argue with that - and it seemed to have satisfied the kid that asked.

Definitely better than I could have done.