16

They were born on a Sunday. That means all kinds of good things according to that old poem. "A child that's born on the Sabbath day is fair and wise and good and gay." Their due date was a Tuesday though: "Tuesday's child is full of grace." Either way, they were bound to be pretty cool.

Some other stuff that happened 16 years ago:

• Princess Diana and Mother Theresa died.
• Michael Jackson's first son was born.
• England gave Hong Kong back to China.
• Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear off.
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published.

This was the first time in a long time we were in town for their birthday. I usually pull them out of school and go somewhere. But, we just came home from Mexico and their birthday was on a Saturday. So we stayed in town and they didn't go to school.

The day started with an 830am basketball game.

Then we went for breakfast with another player and his family.

Then we came home and rested until some friends showed up.

I took 7 teenagers, 3 adults, a toddler, and a baby out for dinner. It was awesome. There was live entertainment. And the boys had fun.

Then all the teenagers came to my house. And I don't know if I've ever told you guys how much I love my sons' friends. Seven 15- and 16-year-old boys are known to cause problems: to sneak alcohol in, to break things, to just be all around troublemakers.

Three teenagers are upstairs hanging out while the other four are in the basement talking about music.
One of the upstairs kids: Let's draw pictures and colour them. Do you have any crayons? What should we draw?

Later on: Let's get the downstairs kids to judge them. We won't tell them who drew which one.

The other kids judge them. And they deliberated. They locked themselves in the bathroom and we could hear shouting and arguing. I won! 

 

But only because of this little guy in the moat:

 

When obviously the winner should have been:

 



But the judges didn't like how the dragon was sleeping on a cloud. Crazy judges.

And then we switched where the downstairs group drew and coloured their own pictures and the rest of us voted on them. I, sadly, did not get a picture of these ones. But the winner drew a crocodile in his too.

And then the boys all disappeared into the basement and I didn't see them again until morning.

 The table didn't look like this for long.

Happy birthday Twin A and Twin B. Thanks for being so fair and wise and good and gay and also full of grace. Mama loves you.

--