Happy birthdays

I think I can remember the turtle cake, the worm and alligator ones too. Or maybe photographs have imprinted themselves onto my mind over the years; pictures made vivid memories by virtue of looking at them repeatedly and hearing their tandem tales. 

It begs the question of what memory is, really. Lived experiences that you clearly remember? Those you've been told about for so long they feel real? Tidbits that surface from the deepest recesses of your brain in dreams or at odd times in odd places? 

Perhaps it doesn't matter, perhaps memory is the sum total of all that.

The birthday cakes I remember were lovingly hand-crafted and bedecked with all manner of licorice whip and shaped gummy—candy serving as eyes, scales, noses and tails to make the two-dimensional concoctions come to life.

Even though the photos have yellowed and faded since first developed, I can still see the love shimmering in them. Thank you McCall's Magazine for the designs and Nanny for clipping and sending them to Mom. Thank you Mom for recreating them for me. 

my 1st birthday; how did mom make that avo-green icing??

In old albums, a faint story line unfurls. Mom cut her hair at some point after she had me. Just before which party was Elia born? Did I like the cakes? How many did each feed? Who came to the parties? What did we do? There are balloons in some shots. Everyone is smiling. 

Those details are blurry images on my mind's horizon, but when I think of birthdays, I feel happy. I was loved. Emphatically so.

That is why I continue to anticipate my birthday and those of my loved ones with such fizzy gusto. It is certainly why I recreated the alligator cake for Jack’s first birthday –even though he wouldn’t eat a bite- and why I have delighted in crafting magical cakes and parties for every birthday the boys have had since.

my 2nd birthday

jack's 1st birthday

Even the pets are fêted. Until Percy got older and needed to watch his weight, we celebrated his birthdays with Frosty Paws, because what is more delightful than watching a quivering pug go to town on a tiny cup of dog ice cream, his snout pushing the container across the floor while his paws and tongue try desperately to keep up. 

Birthdays are, at their most essential, a time to bask in love and appreciation. YOU came into the world at a moment in time, and forever after, everything is a bit changed. At least, that’s how I want to feel on my birthday and how I want my children to grow up experiencing theirs. Jack and Oliver are so wanted, loved, and valued and I like the idea of dedicating one whole day each year to commemorating their place in our world. They are loved. Emphatically so.

Mine might seem an awfully idealistic conception of birthdays, and yet I hold on to that pure sense of what one day a year can be. A celebration of self spun from sugar, love, and others' appreciation of you.

This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post, in response to the prompt, "When I think of birthdays..." Hosts this week are: Kristi of Finding Ninee, Mimi of Mimi Time, and Stacey of This Momma's Ramblings. 

A teary end to a terrific school year

Wasn’t it just September, and we hurried to take our traditional First Day pictures before leaving for school? 

Yesterday brought this year to a close. Rising 4th and 1st graders now, J and O seem so much older than they did just ten months ago. Last night, for the last time ever, I washed and put away the mismatched pillowcases both boys used in PK and K for their daily rest times. Oh, the years.

During the slow pull out of the school parking lot yesterday, as we waved goodbye to friends and teachers, I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw two deeply sad kids. Jack was especially blue, and cried intermittently throughout lunch and even while solving the new 4x4 Rubik's cube I surprised him with. The tears stopped at the orthodontist's office which is, and I'm absolutely serious, one of his favorite destinations. And then they resumed once home.

I held him tight, and let the water fall. I think the world needs more in the way of boys who cry because they had a great third grade year and can't imagine it being over. Who feel the tug of leaving amazing teachers behind, who are heartbroken over a best friend moving away. Who struggle with their emotions, many of which they don't yet understand. Who let those feelings flow rather than pack them away.

And I think the world needs more in the way of people who let them do just that. Without judgment.

Even when Jack expresses inner turmoil in sub-optimal ways, I recognize in it the difficult process of growing up and try to appreciate it as such. He is like me in so many ways- sensitive, emotional, and in possession of a mind that rarely stops. It wasn't easy for me to forge my way through elementary and middle school, and I feel so grateful that he is having an infinitely happier and simpler time of it.

The advancing army of hormones is on his horizon, as are new teachers and greater expectations from them. All of that is hard, even for the most laissez-faire children, and so when I see him struggle and rage and crumble and tire, I get it. Even when it annoys and exhausts me. 

I believe that the traits in our children we find most challenging (in either a difficult or irritating way) are often those we like least about or struggle most with in ourselves. My moodiness and the years it took me to see the glass as half full wore on others and made me question my worth.

I see in Jack now a familiar mercurialism and a fatalistic fear when something feels hard. If he's good at it or inspired and curious, forget it. He's golden. But if he doubts himself or doesn't enjoy the task at hand or meets with more than a modicum of frustration, he erects a wall that even a mighty tsunami would have trouble breaching. 

Hamstrung by dramatic hormone swings, I am still moody but work mightily to rein it in. I no longer fear much of anything really. Years making it on my own in New York largely cured me of worrying about whether or not I could do something; indeed, those years made me fearless in a wonderful way. 

Without individualism and faith in others, we have little, in my opinion. There is plenty of room for introverts and extroverts, for even-keelers and roller coasters, for innately sunny folks and those who naturally skew towards the gray. The world needs all of these types as well as an acceptance of them.

And so as my boy processed his sadness, I tried my best to let him. To show him how he might better handle his emotional swings, to gently remind him that taking things out on others isn't usually the way to go, to be there with him to bear witness and support, to reminisce over all the good that causes the pain but also makes it worth it.

*This is a Finish the Sentence Friday post and is in response to the prompt: "The world really needs more..." Hosts this week are: Kristi Rieger Campbell, Shelley Oz, and Anna Fitfunner. 

In market lines

I market like a European, or at least my impression of how Europeans shop. At least five days of every seven, I descend on one of the four Whole Foods within a two-mile radius of my home; on Sundays, I hit the farmers market in either Bethesda or Dupont. For a long time, I was a strict, committed Duponter, but the cheesemonger in Bethesda is just beyond, and in the heady haze of top-shelf stinky cheese, my allegiance began to waver.

In any case, I started shopping this way when my husband and I lived in Amsterdam. We got married the summer between his two years of business school, and just after our honeymoon, moved to the 'dam for his internship. I had little in the way of responsibility while he was at work so rode my bike all over the city, up and down the canals, in and around the Vondelpark and the neighborhoods that grow off it, like an octopus that keeps sprouting arms.

One of my favorite haunts was the Cuyp markt, an outdoor area chock-full of stalls selling fresh everything. I'd weave through it, purchasing some bread here, some tomatoes there, some cheese if we'd run out. The jugs of freshly-cut flowers always caught my eye, and I loved the way a bouquet of them and the paper-wrapped bread stood at attention out of the baskets straddling my rear bike wheel as I pedaled home. To this day, seeing someone biking with a baguette sprouting from a bike basket fills me with almost inarticulable joy.

I loved then, and still do, the connections that can be forged over the selling, purchasing and sharing of food (and related beauties like flowers). Those connections can be the most ephemeral wisps or can evolve into a sturdier trunk.

How many times have strangers and I discussed just what I or she planned to do with a handful of something appealing? Sunchokes, rhubarb, velvet apricots, papery heads of garlic, an enormous pommelo...I can recall specific conversations around these items, often over the tables that displayed them, as we picked and chose those that looked most perfect to each of us.

And to now know many producers and purveyors by name makes my regular shopping even more fun and communal.

"How is your daughter? Is she feeling better today?"

"When is graduation? Go you!"

"Thank you for asking; the boys are having a great year!"

Last month, at the checkout counter at Whole Foods, I paused while unloading my cart and glanced towards the tall wall near the coffee bar. A poster-sized photo of one of the kindliest employees there hung as memorial to his recent death. He'd been on his way home from celebrating his 39th birthday, was in a horrific car accident, and never made it back to his wife and children.

I was just about to turn 39. I had just seen this man, had just been thinking what a great manager he seemed to be. Because I know her well enough by now, I turned to Mae, and said, "Mae, WHAT happened?" Her eyes welled up, and she told me the story, and I left feeling shell-shocked because just last week I'd seen him.
~~~

*This is my first Finish the Sentence Friday post. FTSF is a group of writers and bloggers who gather each week to finish the same sentence, completely or loosely. This week’s prompt is”It started in the line at the grocery store…” Hosts are Kristi from Finding Ninee, Dawn (this week’s promptress), and Nicki at Red Boots.