Kembe and India (the twins) turned 4 earlier this week.
It
was very anticlimactic. Their preschool schedule their special moment
at school a couple days before the real day. They get to wear a crown
and the parent supplies a special snack . . . but we are discouraged
from bringing sweets or cupcakes. However, a lot of parents don’t
follow the rules, and my kids came home moping several days last
year because “so-and-so” got CUPCAKES for their birthday snack, and I
sent string cheese and carrots.
As a mom, it leaves you
in a weird predicament. Do you send healthy stuff to be respectful of
the teacher’s requests? Or do you make cupcakes because it makes your
kid feel special?
I attempted to walk the line this
year. I had the bright idea that I would make healthy muffins (to
ressemble cupcakes) and then “frost” them with a mixture of cream cheese
and stevia. I topped them with rainbow sprinkles. I felt very please
with myself for beating the system – they looked like cupcakes only the
were healthy! WIN-WIN!
Except
. . . they were DISGUSTING. I mean, truly. Not right. Not right at
all. The multi-colored sprinkles on top only furthered the betrayal of
brain to mouth.
I wondered how the preschool classes
would take to the bait and switch. Would I arrive for pickup to find
an unruly mob of four-year-olds ready to take me to tasks for the fake
cupcakes?
But really, afterschool was only marked by
one bit of drama: Kembe’s anger at me over having missed his birthday
celebration. Seems I’d forgotten to explain that here in the states,
there might be several, and that the big one would be with our family.
So when a group of adults and other children sang happy birthday to him
at preschool, he thought that was it, and that we had not been there. He was pretty sad about that.
and another small bit of drama. India’s teacher mistakenly wrote the
number “5” on her crown instead of 4. She’s the youngest in her class
so I think the teacher assumed she was turning 5, and when India saw the
number, she was elated, being sure that the teacher must be right. She
came telling me, “Mom! Guess what? I’M ALREADY FIVE!!!” She was
crestfallen to find out she was not even really 4 for a few days,
Fortunately, the cupcakes did not result in any vomit-related drama. That I know of.
So,
when we got home, we had an impromptu party in the backyard, because
Karis, Jafta and a couple of his friends who were over had not sampled
the cupcakes. They saw the leftover goodies in my cupcake carrier and
begged. We all sat around the table, sang happy birthday to the kids
(while explaining that there was still an ACTUAL PARTY that would be
happening on their ACTUAL BIRTHDAY, where daddy and more friends would
be present).
And the funny thing is, the kids devoured
those muffins covered in slimey, fake-sugar frosting. One of the boys
even declared them to be the Best Cupcakes Ever.
All of them, that is, except India. She was not having it. “These are fake cupcakes, mom.”
real birthday came and went without mention, because we felt like it
was too complicted to explain that in addition to the preschool
celebration on Monday and the party with their friends on Saturday, that
their real date of birth was another day altogether. So the
real birthday party, on a day that is NOT really their birthday, will
happen today. (Confused? Exactly why we are lying to the four-year-olds who think they are still three).
But today, there will be real cupcakes.
And hopefully, a fun party where they both feel honoroed for the amazing little four-year-olds that they are.
