Parents and Kids and Birthdays

It's my dad's birthday today. My auntie is over visiting from South Australia and I headed over to my parents this evening to wish dad a happy birthday. It was good to catch up. My auntie bookmarked my blog to read, and I heard stories about what she would like to do to Andrew Denton, which was rather interesting :)

So it was my dad's birthday, and yet he paid for our takeaway dinner (Seven Stars in East Bentleigh. Do yourself a favour). I didn't get him a present either. I never do. He doesn't like to make a fuss. He was just pleased that I graced him with my presence.

Said presence left with more than she came with. Not my birthday, but I was the one to get some soap and lip balm as a gift from my parents' little holiday away down the coast a few weeks ago. How does that work? Do the parenting scales ever balance back the other way?

Actually, the real winner of the night was the dog. Lester took himself off into the spare room and began rustling around in there at one point of the night. Came out with a bag that was actually for him - containing a baker's dozen full of tennis balls my mum had retrieved for him from a fellow tennis-playing friend. That dog can sniff out a bag of balls from 100 paces. He proceeded, as is his delight, to rip up the bag and cover the dining room in a flurry of tennis balls.

He has this cute habit of putting his ball in his food bowl. Not sure what the deal is there, it's like a little security blanket for him while he eats. Lucky he had eaten most of his food because by the end of the night there were nine of the suckers in that one food bowl :)