The first and arguably best one is reposted here, complete with the original art that was supposed to be used with it. I thought it might be fun to revisit it, though now Midget's four years old and in pre-K.
TURNING 3 W/ BENJI COON @ CHUCK E. CHEESE
By Benjamin Carr
THE BLANK COLUMN, August 11, 2002
His mother took photos that she'll probably use to bribe him years from now.
He wore a crown and had chocolate icing all over his face at one point. Later, he was wearing a fire helmet. And when he finally wears the Woody from "Toy Story" outfit (complete with boots and a faux cowhide vest), flashbulbs are sure to go off.
The set of Lincoln Logs he unwrapped that day, one of the gifts from his grandmother, will likely turn up 15 years from now in a dusty basement, for those toys last forever.
Most of the guests at the third birthday party of Benji Coon, including me, recognized that today contained several moments that will matter to him (or embarrass him) later.
"That's one they can use in his high school yearbook," said Randi Robins, another of Benji's aunts, as a shot of him wearing a big paper birthday crown was taken. "He'll beg us not to show these to his girlfriends."
At one point, I told him that he now gets to hold up three fingers instead of two before saying, "This many," when people ask how old he is.
When asked, Mike Coon, Benji's father, downplayed the significance of his son's change in age.
"To me, he's not a year older," he said. "He's just another day older."
But for Benji, turning 3 wasn't about making memories or getting older. It was about all the pizza he got to eat and all the games he got to play at the recently opened Chuck E. Cheese, outside Mall of Georgia in Buford.
"Today was a fun day, Big Benjie," he told me when it was all over.
Superheroes and Skee-Ball
Though technically a toddler, Benji specified to his parents exactly what he wanted the party to be like.
Jessika Coon, Benji's mother and a close friend of mine, said days before the party that he's been talking celebrating at Chuck E. Cheese for weeks.
"Every time we talked about his birthday, he said he wanted to come here," Jessika said. "He knew where he wanted his party, the guests he wanted, what he wanted on the cake. He couldn't pick a theme, but he said he wanted superheroes on it."
The chocolate birthday cake, baked by Mike from some Duncan Hines mix, had chocolate frosting on its side and vanilla on the top, as Benji suggested. And it was covered with decals and candy featuring the likenesses of Spider-man, Batman and the Powerpuff Girls.
While opening his gifts, Benji indulged by eating several pieces of the Powerpuff Girls candy off the side of the cake.
Before licking the frosting off the pieces, he would slowly say, "Cho-co-late," as if to pay proper respect. Then, he'd swallow the piece whole.
Though Benji tried all sorts of games with his grandmother, Kathy Robins, his favorite game at Chuck E. Cheese was Skee-Ball, though it took assistance from his mother to play it properly.
Before Jessika stood him in the middle of the ramp, Benji didn't have much luck rolling the balls all the way up it. While he was in the aisle, though, Jessika anticipated another problem.
"When I stood him in the aisle, I had one arm around him so that he wouldn't run up the aisle," she said. "He has a tendency to run up and put the ball in the score hole if I don't."
Skee-Ball also proved the top attraction to all of Benji's guests, most of which were in their 20s and had visited Chuck E. Cheese many times before.
Jen Coon, another of Benji's aunts and a student at Kennesaw State College, challenged and defeated Mike in high-score competitions throughout the day and won the 250-ticket Skee-Ball jackpot twice. Randi and I spent over $10 on Skee-Ball games.
"The party's for him and for us," Mike said. "This place's just fun."
By the party's end, guests had earned over 1,500 tickets on games, which earned Benji an electronic keyboard on top of his other gifts.
Jen, who brought three gifts to the party (including an electronic crane set wrapped in glossy Batman paper deemed "too pretty to rip"), said she found shopping for Benji's birthday too tempting.
"It was horrible shopping for him," she said. "There are too many great toys in the toy store."
Between eating cake and watching his balloon fly away
Benji's a boy of few words at this point. Posing before cameras, he faced my barrage of questions.
"Yes," he answered, when asked if he felt older.
"Yes," he said, when asked if he was having fun.
All other questions were discouraged as Benji sang "Happy Birthday" to himself.