Charlie’s birthday landed on our travel-back-home-day.  Knowing this ahead of time, I was able to pick up some little presents to surprise him with throughout the day.  Our flight left Colombo at 2:55 a.m, which is a really stinky time, but that meant that we were at the airport when the clock struck midnight.  Five minutes to 12, I turned to Charlie with big eyes and said, “You only have 5 minutes left being 8!  Quick!  Do whatever you wanted to do when you were 8 before you run out of time!”  He just laughed at me.  I guess that was all there was left to do on his to-do list – laugh at mom. Check. 

When the digits rolled over to 00:00, The Mister handed Charlie the first of his many surprises – a deck of Ben 10 cards.  Charlie loved them!  And then proceeded to tell me all the details of each of the characters, which was just a bit too much for this old brain to take in at such an early hour without any sleep or coffee. 

We got onto the plane and all immediately fell asleep.  I had planned on watching the rest of Julie and Julia, but there was no way I could keep my eyes open.  When we landed, we knew that we were cutting it close for our next connecting flight.  The airline also knew that the time was short for us to get to our gate, and had some of their representatives waiting for us at the end of the walk-way/off-ramp/gang-plank (what the heck is it called??).  We were taken through secret passageways and back roads and even a time warp.  When we got to our gate, we were the final passengers.  The Mister asked the gate guy, “Will our luggage make it onto the flight?”  You see, The Mister is a smart guy.  He knows that there is only one flight per day.  He also knows that our airline has the reputation of treating its clients very well, especially when their layovers are long, whether they are expected or not.  He also knows, from past experience, that it can take up to 5 days to get lost luggage returned and, therefore, was not going to get on a plane without confirmation that our luggage would also be making the flight. 

After a few phone calls it was confirmed, “No.  Your luggage will not make the flight.”

The Mister, on all our behalves, refused to board the plane. 

The airline put us in a hotel. 

And that is how it ended up that Charlie spent his 9th birthday in DUBAI!

Things we did:
- saw the tallest building in the world
- walked through the biggest mall in the world (8.5 hours and we still didn’t see everything!)
- went to the aquarium in the mall
- watched a dancing fountain timed to music
- ate at the Rainforest Cafe; watched Charlie beam as the waitstaff sang him Happy Birthday
- said “no” to a $1000 covering; touched it a lot before bidding adieu
- walked into the Louis Vuitton store, made a joke about them not treating their purses very well (they were displayed in bird cages) and the doorman did NOT laugh.

- bought lollipops for the kids at the enormous candy store for the plane ride
- let Charlie pick out a Ben 10 toy at the ginormous kids store

“This was the best birthday ever!” Charlie the 9 year old.