Do you remember Chuckie from the Rugrats, red hair, oversized specs and best friend of Tommy Pickles? Rather surprisingly, we discovered you could hire a 6-foot sized Chuckie in Nassau (it’s hard to find smoked salmon in Nassau, let alone a 6-foot Chuckie).
For Felix’s 4th birthday we organized for Chuckie to come from Nassau to Harbour Island. He arrived off the ferry very hot and sweaty, carrying his head in his arms…. He was quite a grumpy Chuckie. Felix and his little friends were chasing birthday balloons around the garden when Chuckie arrived. Felix took one look at this gigantic cartoon character and ran in fright into the bathroom where he stayed for the rest of the party.
Felix’s 18th was more successful. 18 friends to celebrate 18 years around long trestle tables under the stars, lit by candlelight. We laid out gigantic palm fronds on top of the white tablecloths, anchored by two locally grown bunches of bananas in the center, with piles of pineapples, watermelons and oranges spilling off in each direction, and masses of tea lights dotted between shells in amongst the fruit.
David stood up and read out the Mark Twain quote: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
I went to bed and wept that evening. My beautiful first born child was now an adult.
Well… sort of. I just found him holding his younger brother in a choke hold.
Wow, when he leave’s for University, it will be you crying and running toward him and not wanting to let go! We are so happy to have our children go off to make their lives, and so much grief, especially when the last one leaves!!! Life and living are over so quickly, let us celebrate all the moments we have with our children and partner’s and even perhaps if you are lucky, parent’s you love that live to a ripe old age…… Melissa Lee