This year, Israel and I decided to do an experiment with Micah for his 5th birthday. The plan was that we would try to keep the date unknown to the boys and then on the morning of Micah’s birthday, we would shock the daylights out of him with a birthday surprise…and he wouldn’t even know it was his birthday!  It seemed like a hilarious, yet perfect plan. Imanuel, naturally, was the most in tune with the date and so I had to try to throw him off. No writing dates on his school work. It worked out because the End of Season Bash for Team Revolution was the day before Micah’s birthday so it served as a good decoy. I was envisioning the surprise in my mind and it included Micah squealing for joy as if he had just won the lottery! Perhaps the overwhelming happiness would send him into shock and he’d pass out. Something like that.

On the eve of his birthday, after we had put the boys to bed, my brother Justin and I went to the store to pick up stuff for the birthday surprise. My sister sponsored the balloons and an ice cream cake and we got some presents. We had originally planned on doing the surprise in the morning, but plans changed when my little brother had to head back to Ann Arbor that night and Israel was leading the office worship that morning. We decided to do the surprise late that night. So, after shopping, we stopped by Sansu to get my little cousin, Brian, who had finished his shift there and then we headed home. After some preparation, it was game time. We snuck into the boys’ room and got Imanuel and Ty out of the room. They were a little groggy and confused, but we explained that we were going to surprise Micah for his birthday. With all the gifts wrapped and cards signed, we marched up to their bedroom where Micah was sleeping. Brian led the way with my guitar to accompany our singing. Then we followed with the balloons and gifts. Justin took the rear with his iPhone taking video.  Click HERE for the raw video footage.

We opened the bedroom door, turned on the light, and we began to sing “Happy Birthday to you” with as much enthusiasm we could muster. Micah didn’t move much. In fact, he couldn’t manage to open his eyes. Israel picked him up and we were trying to get him to see all of the presents and balloons. I even told him we had a birthday cake! All of the shaking and nudging and tickling didn’t work. He just didn’t want to wake up. He passed out alright. But the problem was that he never woke up in the first place!

Imanuel had to fill me in on what happened when they woke up the next morning. Micah woke up and seeing all of the presents, he thought it was Christmas. (So, I guess there was some sort of “shock and awe” play that happened.) He asked Manu which of the presents were for him. Then Manu told him it was his birthday and Micah was very happy and excited.  He loved the gifts which were “Angry Birds” themed per Justin’s suggestion.  He also loved the special gift from Grandma Karen which she personally brought to our place when she visited on Sunday!  He had absolutely no recollection of what happened the night before.  Maybe when he gets older, he’ll watch the video again and appreciate all of our planning and effort we put into the awesome surprise that never would be. 

His birthday was fun.  The boys took an amped up bubble bath in our jacuzzi and Israel made the boys green eggs and ham which is Micah’s birthday tradition.  In the morning, Manu wrapped up a present and gave it to Micah.  We didn’t know what it was.  It ended up being a sweater that was his but he wanted to pass it down to Micah.  He was very happy about that.  In the evening, we invited the boys’ local uncles and aunties over for dinner and cake.  Thank you all for coming and for the kind gifts.

While the birthday experiment didn’t quite go as planned, it was still lots of fun and Micah did mention that it was his best birthday ever.  So pretty much, we learned an important lesson for all you parents out there: Middle of the night surprises don’t work on kids.

Happy 5th Birthday, Micah-Likes!We love you more than you  know and Jesus loves you the most!