Between Post Picture

Saturday night my wife and I took our  kids to an Unbirthday Party (from the Mad Hatter's rant in Alice in Wonderland about celebrating the 364 days of the year not your birthday) at East Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Kirtland.

The kid-friendly community-building event saw 12 tables set up, one for each month of the year, and everyone sat at the table corresponding to their birthday month. October was a lonely table, but likely a busy month, given the number of people at the July table.

Cake decorating elements of all manner were provided, and the cake of my birth month, February, ended up with no less than one dog-like dinosaur, 10+ gummy bears, a small rooster, and lots of mini M&Ms.

Following a variety of games and after many frosting-coated kid faces were more or less wiped clean, everyone was able to grab an unbirthday party prize from one of two over-stuffed baskets full of all manner of toy oddities.

This post exists because as my wife and I were wrangling the littlest one, who was completely coated in aquamarine-colored frosting (that's my boy!), my ten year old, affectionately known in this blog as Racer Z, rushed excitedly up to me to show me his prize.

What was so special, however, was that the prize he was so excited about was not for him, but for me.

"Dad! I picked your prize for you! You're going to love it!"

The prize was the above pictured little die-cast, a Shell Motorsports Indy Racer die-cast (#28 Shell Reynard, if you must know). My son was so thrilled because he was adding to the Daddy's Matchbox collection!

"Did you pick a prize for yourself yet?" I asked.

"Not yet, but I thought you would really like this. Do you?"

"I do, very much," I truthfully answered.

I don't think I could have been happier had he driven in a real car and handed me the keys.

See I may be an adult, but I can still imagine the excitement of rummaging through a toy basket for a fun trinket, and to know that the real excitement came for my son from finding a gift for me will be treasured.

Little Indy Racer, you may proudly take a place among the Daddy's Matchbox collection.

Thanks to all the wonderful people at East Shore U.U. -- if you're in Kirtland, Ohio some Sunday, please drop by -- and a happy unbirthday to all of you!

For accuracy, the featured car is not affiliated with Matchbox or Mattel and was manufactured by EPI Sports Collectibles.