Gulf Coast Family

“Every few days he’s been asking me how much money he has in his savings account.”

I am writing this article on my younger son, Daniel’s ninth birthday. It has been a very busy day at the end of a very busy week. We had company all week, Daniel’s sister had Kindergarten graduation on Friday, he and his sister were in a play at church tonight, and his dad and I have been trying to get this issue of the newspaper finished.

So Daniel didn’t get to blow out his candles or open his presents until after 9:00 tonight. But he was fine with that, because Nintendo actually gave him the perfect present a few weeks ago, when he saw a sign on the window of a Game Stop store indicating that the new Super Mario Galaxy 2 game would be available right on his birthday. Surely they picked that release date just for him!

Now Daniel is not your ordinary Mario fan – probably all elementary age boys who are familiar with Mario are fans on some level. But Daniel eats, sleeps, and breathes Mario. He designs his own galaxies, wants to decorate his room in a Mario theme (unfortunately, his older brother, who shares the room, isn’t quite as big of a fan), and would gladly spend all of his waking hours and half of his sleeping hours playing one Mario game or another on the Wii or the DS if we would let him.

The funny thing is, between the fact that the game didn’t come out until today (after all, how could we possibly make it to a video game store the very day a game is released), and the price tag (it’s happened before, but $50 might be too much for one birthday gift), Daniel wasn’t too confident that we could actually pull it off and get him the new game for his birthday. So he’s been trying to figure out how he could buy it himself.

I didn’t catch on, but every few days he’s been asking me how much money he has in his savings account. Then this week, he received a few cards with birthday money, and he was noticeably excited about his total life savings. Then tonight, when he opened his present from his grandparents, it had $20 in it, which put him over the top. His enthusiasm was amazing – “I have $58! That’s enough to get Super Mario Galaxy 2!! You can ride on Yoshi on that game!!!”

And of course that excitement only increased when he opened the next gift and realized that, yes, his mom was capable of driving the two miles to the video game store this afternoon to pick up the game that she pre-ordered several days ago; and, yes, his mom and dad would spend a fortune to get him a birthday present that he would like.

Daniel pored over the manual while he ate a piece of cake and was well on his way to conquering the new galaxy before he had to go to bed. He hasn’t figured out what he will do with his $58 now, but I imagine it will probably still involve Mario, Luigi, and Bowser.

Until next time,

Jennifer