Bow Reenacts Opening a Birthday Card

Bow is almost fifteen

Bow is not so small anymore. He is almost fifteen. Today, a card came in the mail addressed to him.

I handed the card to Bow, and he began to open it.

Bow had just started opening the card when the cell phone camera cut me off, because there was no more storage space. So I did not get to record his delight in the card and the music it played, or how he danced a little to the music. By the time I had cleared more space on the camera, it was much later in the day, and the initial excitement was over.

On the inside of the card, Bow's friend who brings the bananas had signed her name. But since Bow told Lawrence her name was "girl", she also added that in under the signature.

For some reason, when you run out of storage space on my cell phone, and then you delete the last item that put you over the top, you never go right back to being able to record. So I spent several hours deleting images trying to clear space so I could go back to filming Bow interacting with his birthday card. By then, he had lost all interest in the card, and all he wanted was for me to start dinner.

I could see how frustrated he was with me. He was getting a little bit snappy. But I made a deal with him. "Bow," I said. "I'm sorry my camera cut off when you were first opening the card. Could you open the card again and let me film that? And could you act the way you did the first time? After you do that, I will start dinner right away."

Bow thought about it. The idea of having me start dinner right away seemed to please him. So he took the card from me, and I told him to wait till I was ready before he opened it. Below is the reenactment. It's not as good as the first time he opened it. You can tell how eager he is for me to take back the card and go fix dinner. But you can also  see what a good-natured fellow he really is, humoring me like that!