Yesterday afternoon, he came flying out of his seat on the van as I opened the door.

“Mom! Mom!  I got an invitation!  I got an invitation! Do you want to see?” He started fumbling with his backpack in the aisle of the van.

“Can we wait a moment to get out?”, I asked.  “Say goodbye to your friends.”

“I got an invitation!”

As we got out of the van, one of his old preschool teachers drove by.

“Howie, say hi to Mrs. L!”

“I got an invitation!”

This repeated when he got inside and saw Lewis and again when Gerry got home.  Together, we sat down and read the note.

Come to Jack’s birthday party.  Bowling.  October 22nd from 11:30-1:30

His first kindergarten birthday invitation.  For a kid we don’t know.  Yes, I’m sure the whole class was invited, but still…huge.

Howie jumped around so excited.

“Do they have Hot Wheels bowling shoes?”

“I got an invitation!  I got an invitation!”

**********

This morning, Howie asked if he could send Jack a message.  “For his party,” he said. “I want to tell him that I am coming.”

I told him that when he got home from school, we could send an e-mail message to him.

Little did I know, Howie meant that HE would send the message.  As in, type it himself.

We sat down at the computer.  I gave Lewis the iPad so that my focus could be on Howie.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to type it?”, I asked.

“NO!  I’m going to.  Now tell me the letters.  I want to write ‘Dear Jack’.”

So we started.  “First letter is D.”

“D…d…d…d…where is d…”

“E…e…e..e…where is e…”

“I need to go poop.”

“A…a…a…where is a…I want to make it uppercase…”

Get the picture?

I would respond with “The ‘I’ is on top.” And “You have to hold down shift and the letter together to make it uppercase.” And “The letter ‘T’ is in the top row, not out the window.”

45 minutes later, we had this:

DeAr JacK

I wouLd AppreciatE it come to yoUr BYRTHdAy party.

from Howie (sic)

“Can we send it now?  How does the computer know how to get it to Jack?”

“That’s a great question for your dad.  Let’s send it.”

Now I’ll admit that I surreptitiously cleaned it up a little so that it didn’t look like a ransom note.  But I left the words intact.  Along with a note to Jack’s mom that Howie wanted to write the words himself.

I’m pretty proud of him for this.  He got the whole connection between getting the invitation and telling Jack that he wanted to come.  And while it took forever for him to actually type it, he did.

He’s come a long way, baby.

Now to just get through the two weeks until the party.

“(Why don’t you check it and see one more time for me, you gotta)
Wait a minute
Wait a minute
Wait a minute
Wait a minute
(Mister Postman)
Mister Postman, look and see

(C’mon deliver the letter, the sooner the better)
Mister Postman” – Please Mr. Postman by The Marvelettes

And a very happy 10th anniversary to my amazing husband.  You make every day better and give me the strength to get out bed in the morning.  Because of you, days like this are possible.  Thank you.