Abby's Big 7th Birthday

Time flies and kids get big fast. You think you've got a tiny baby and you turn around and you've got a little person with a dazzling personality who can read, write, imagine, and really think about things.

Today was Abby's seventh birthday.

On waking up she received a happy birthday song and a Nintendo DS Lite in pink of course, an item she's been patiently begging to get for her birthday for a year now.

I had pre-configured it with her name and birthday so she was amazed that it knew her name and date of birth when she opened it. Nice to see that even at 7 you can still get a sense of wonder with a little prior preparation and planning.

Her first game was America's Test Kitchen: Let's Get Cooking
. The kid loves to cook, and this game, which speaks her name has cool videos on every stage of food preparation to cooking to serving and tons of recipes and she's loving it. She loves to watch the show on DVD, loves to cook and is really working on creating her own dishes, many of which actually are pretty tasty (of course its hard to go wrong with whipped cream, chocolate chips, milk and chocolate syrup).

We then took her to Gamestop and let her buy another game. She chose Imagine Teacher. In addition to cooking she loves to pretend being a school teacher and you can really hear her first grade teachers voice as she "teaches". The game also helps her with writing, spelling, math and other subjects so its educational without being overbearing.

While Abby and I were at Gamestop, Leah thoughtfully bought her a pink plastic case for the DS at Toys R Us, with a little selection help from Tash, and Leah got a Barbie mermaid doll for her thoughtfulness on her sisters birthday.

We then took her to lunch, then home for some quiet time and playing with her new toy and I sat with her and helped her figure out how to play the teaching game. She got the hang of it really well and since her reading ability is high for her grade she was soon zipping along happily playing teacher.

We then made her choice of dinner - spaghetti and sauce and then had some friends over for her birthday cake - a homemade cherry cheesecake that was excellent.

So she had a great birthday and is looking forward to Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Making your kid happy on their birthday is one of the great joys of parenthood.