Joust

The conversation began as it did in the weeks leading up to each of my son’s birthdays: who do you want on your cake? With my oldest at four years old, and my youngest now turning three, we’ve had our fair share of stereotypical cakes: Elmo, dinosaurs, Handy Manny, farm animals and the like. Personally, I was hoping he would suggest something simple, like Mickey Mouse, since his mother holds minimal cake decorating talent. Instead, he shocked me with his response. In his two-year-old lisp, he told me, “Mama, I justh want Jousth on my cake.” Joust? As in the Calvin College mascot?

Let me inform you at this point that as of this past January my son had a love/hate relationship with Joust. We were regular attenders of Calvin men’s basketball games, and every Saturday home game he would neglect the game being played on the court to seek out the oversized Knight roaming the crowd. “There he ith! There he ith!” he would point out to us. However, anytime Joust would approach within a ten food radius, my son would bury his head into my shoulder, grip tightly onto me, and scream. Apparently this relationship was never meant to be.

Except over time my son softened. Joust, it turns out, is not a terrifying monster but a friend to all. After observing my oldest son confidently approach him and give him high-fives or knuckles, my youngest soon learned to face his fears and made physical contact with Joust and redefined this former “foe” as a new “friend.”

Driving down Lake Drive or Breton, my youngest would always find the Calvin College sign and remind us “Dat’s where Jousth liveths.” And, on the morning of the Calvin College Spring Classic, while all of the other children were playing games with the physical education students, my youngest approached Joust and asked him to play catch. The two were inseparable.

But now onto the birthday dilemma. How would I ever pull off a Joust party? I used what basic decorating skills I had to recreate the Knight logo on a cake, I was able to purchase maroon and gold plates and napkins at a local party store (only because in May they carry all graduation colors of the local schools), and we even printed out a few large image pictures of Joust in action at the basketball games as posters for our walls. And my son couldn’t have been more thrilled. The morning of his party we all donned our best Calvin gear (with both boys in their basketball jerseys) and blew out the candles on his “Jousth” cake.

I’m only hoping his birthday wish was a full-ride scholarship to Calvin in 15 years.