Einstein’s theory challenged at baby’s birthday party

Our granddaughter decided to crash last year’s Independence Day fireworks viewing party by demanding an early start — to life, that is. Charlotte and Andrew headed off to the hospital three weeks early under the rocket’s red glare, and a day and a half later, by the dawn’s early light, baby Sadie burst onto the scene. She’s been a little star from the get-go.

Strawberry blond, hopelessly ornery and filled with sass, Sadie is a carbon copy of her mother. Kristin and I feel like we’ve traveled backward in a time machine to experience a replay of Charlotte’s babyhood. The resemblance is truly uncanny.

And so we gathered this year on the weekend of the Fourth of July to do the “first birthday” thing. You all know how it works: a crepe paper and balloon-festooned house filled with family, sugar-spiked kids racing in every direction, a table filled with gifts, and a beaming little piggy-tailed squirt in a fancy pink outfit teasing the crowd into thinking she might just take her first steps while everyone is watching.

The first steps will have come on another day, but baby Sadie delivered a show-stopping performance nevertheless during the ceremonial singing of “Happy Birthday to You.”

It is birthday tradition, of course, that leads us to circle the honoree, no matter what their age, place a cake in front of them and light a corresponding number of candles so they may make a wish and send it off in a flicker of flame and a wisp of smoke. It’s been done for centuries, I presume, and probably has its origins in some ancient heathen ritual like most such things. We’ve seen cakes with as many as 95 candles in our family and corresponding clouds of smoke that, if somehow tethered to the cake, could carry it all the way to heaven right along with a wish!

Sadie’s cake was simpler — one birthday, one candle. All we needed to do was get through the song without big brother Max puffing his 3-year-old lungs across the table to prematurely snuff out the candle as he has at other such gatherings. The baby wasn’t so sure what all the fuss was about, nor did she seem to care. All eyes in her direction, she giggled and wiggled between doting parents as the singing commenced. Then halfway through the second “Happy Birthday to You,” she thrust a tiny baby paw toward the flickering flame!

Science tells me the speed of light is the topper. Einstein declared there is nothing faster, and yet I sincerely believe that if the physicist were alive and present at Sadie’s birthday party, he would have had to chuck his whole theory after witnessing the reflexes of her parents. The save was beyond spectacular.

And while baby Sadie’s tiny fingers may have been spared the lick of flame, her budding emotions took full account of the collective gasp of four generations’ worth of assembled family. The baby burst instantly into tears — and I’m talking mouth-open, high-octave, scream-until-your-lungs-run-out tears!

Max took care of the candle while brother James offered an overly wise 5-year-old’s synopsis: “So do you guys think MAYBE we shouldn’t have put FIRE in front of her?”

Happy birthday, baby Sadie. May all your wishes nevertheless come true.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.