The Popeye card

Because, really. How better could you say "Happy Birthday" to a seven-year-old girl than with a Popeye card?

A few birthday parties ago, I started copying my friend Michelle's idea of letting the kids create birthday cards for their friends. I used to spend 20+ minutes stamping cards that, if I was lucky, got glanced at for...oh... maybe half a second. More often than not, the card never even made it out of the gift bag. Kids just don't care about cards. And it's not as if they need to look at one to identify who the present is from. Usually, the gift giver is bouncing up and down with excitement, "That one's from me! I got you that!"

That is how it came to be that AJ was put in charge of making a birthday card for our friend Addie.

He did it all in pencil because, as he explained, the Popeye cartoon from the library he'd watched the night before (we checked out a DVD of classics from the early 1940's) had been in black and white.

And really, who doesn't like Popeye?

You know... I need to slightly correct one of my earlier comments. There is one particular birthday card that AJ very much appreciates.

It's the handmade card he received from his Bianchi cousins. Every time he has to make a card, he uses it as a guide to spell "Happy Birthday." We've gone to four birthday parties in the last three weeks, so the card has pretty much taken up permanent residence on our craft table (also known as our dining room table.) AJ initially couldn't find the card when it came time to create his Popeye masterpiece, and so I spelled out "H-A-P-P-Y" as I looked around the table.

AJ picked  up his pencil, ready to go to work, then paused, "How do you spell 'H'?"

A little bit later, as he put the finishing touches on the front of the card, he noted, "Did you know Popeye was a vegetarian? Because all he eats is spinach."