vantage point
Kirby's birthday party happened. Only one kid did not come, one of Kirby's classmates, he told him he'd be there for sure, which stood against the missing answer from his parents, we didn't even get a »no«.
Like with the party of his teammate, all the kids gelled great together across age groups and backgrounds. Again, when does boyhood become a pissing contest?
We booked a parkour training venue with a trainer, and both were great. To get the kids — and a few of the adults — to know the place and just power them down for the free play part, he played hide and seek with the kids. I observed the whole thing from a higher vantage point; from which was amazing to follow the proceedings from. Even from that point, most of the kids disappeared completely — like the Predator turning on the camouflage. Yes, i made the clicking sounds, with my inside voice of course. The trainer took two steps, which didn't sound fair, but he made use of his surroundings and knows the place, so he positioned himself in places, from which he could overlook popular spots. When he called the end, and the kids came out of their hiding spots, it reminded me of turning on the cellar light in the basement of the house of my first love; several rooms of the basement weren't in use anymore — it was also used as an office when before her parents separated —, and that one time i grabbed the extra shovel to help clean the driveway and parts of the garden, it felt like i had woken up all the insects and other denizens, who fled into the shadows.
During free play, my big brother in-law coached me on how to perform a forward flip onto the giant airbag. Some of the kids let themselves fall backwards onto it from a raised platform, around two and a half meters above the airbag. I tried three times, couldn't manage to do it once. My body refused to let itself fall, yet, i let myself swing into it from a metal bar, that's been mounted around three meters above it. Kirby once fell into the airbag, and afterwards wasn't able to breathe in again without pain. Coming down from the adrenaline tired me out for the rest of the day.
When the presents were handed to Kirby, i was touched by the generosity of the kids, and the joy which they seemed to experience when Kirby cheered.
We spent the rest of the afternoon assembling Lego sets and retrofitting others to fit Kirby's current play patterns.
Started watching Detectorists again. I love that show. There are some flaws in it, of course, still, it beats 90% of the stuff that is considered peak TV. I'll elaborate on it when i feel the time is right.