Year 5, Day 1: Miles’s Fourth Birthday Party!

Miles’s big Fourth Birthday Weekend has arrived, and his friends (and ours) once again came out to celebrate. Miles’s friend Audrey came into town last night.

Last year, we had a small celebration (several, actually) due to the pandemic, but today marked Miles’s first full-fledged “destination birthday” since his trip to Discovery Place Nature two years ago. The destination in question? Bach to Rock, a music schools with programs for most of your major age groups that — yes — also does parties.

Given the age group (most every kid in attendance was in the 3-5 range), the center provided all manner of rudimentary instruments to practice hitting, shaking, and generally keeping rhythm.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Miles found it nearly impossible to stay seated. By the time “We Will Rock You” started, he was a certified hype man.

The whole time, Miles was really just waiting to play the full drum set with all the patience of Pee-wee Herman on a tour of the Alamo. I didn’t want to get his hopes up too much; after all, were they really going to let all these kids get their grubby, destructive mitts on a legitimate instrument?

There are two ways to think about what “lifelong ambitions” might look like to a four-year-old. One on hand, with so much to be discovered out there, everything is sort of a lifelong ambition at that age. On the other, with so little experience of the world and the treasures it holds, can any four-year-old truly have a dream? Whatever the case, this was the closest Miles has come to wish fulfillment in his young life, embracing and treasuring his time on the drums like nothing before it.

There’s no doubt Miles enjoyed his big day (despite screaming about how “loud” everyone was when they sang “Happy Birthday”), and with a bunch of happy kids and no mess for us to clean up, we made out pretty well too!