We have several very important birthday traditions in our house, mostly revolving around food.
1. The Birthday Kid gets to choose the birthday cereal.
2. The Birthday Kid gets to choose what’s for supper.
3. The Birthday Kid gets to choose the cake/dessert. In fact, until they reach age 5 or so, they think that birthday and cake are synonymous, as in “I want a chocolate birthday with pink icing.”
4. The Birthday Kid is exempt from chores.
So, birthdays are really big deals, anticipated for weeks ahead of time (and sometimes months, as is the case for Sweetsie, who is counting down the six months until she turns five). In fact, they get so excited that they pop out of bed way too early because they just can’t wait to dig into their sugary bowl of breakfast cereal. A sugar-based diet for a sleep-deprived, highly-excited child is not smart. But that’s how it’s done around here. I figure I get my way (ha!) the other 361 days, so I best just shut up and buck up.
Miss Becca Boo picked Lucky Charms for her breakfast cereal. She wanted the generic kind that comes in a bag because it’s bigger than the box (it was one-half ounce bigger, but half the cost, so I didn’t argue). I did make them eat a little bowl of granola first because I couldn’t bear the thought of them starting their day with nothing in their tanks but sugared air, but then I let them eat their fill, mostly—I did have to put the breaks on Yo-Yo Boy.
For morning snack we had bananas (a specialty item here) and lunch was meat-and-cheese bagel sandwiches and carrot sticks. Afternoon snack will be Cheese Curls, and supper will be cheese fondue with broccoli, apples, hot dogs, sausages, toasted bread chunks, and grapes. And strawberry cake for dessert.
Miss Becca Boo keeps sticking her head out of her room (she’s in rest time), checking to see if I’ve started on the cake yet. She’s getting rather anxious, and I certainly don’t want to cause the Birthday Girl anxiety, so I’d better get busy.
