A Very, Very Tasty Birthday

This is a post about birthdays. Keeping true to the spirit of this blog, it mentions food a little bit too; otherwise, though, it's mostly about birthdays.

And it begins with my former boss.

One morning we were chatting, with another colleague of mine, about her son's birthday. He had either just had a birthday, or it was coming up that weekend, or maybe it was coming up soon enough. Somehow, the conversation was timely, even if I can't totally remember why. Doesn't matter.

She has three young kids, all boys, and my colleague asked if he was having a birthday party.

Nope, she responded. My boys only get one birthday party, when they turn six. His was last year.

I believe in a little thing called Mom School. It's where moms learn to say things like "I'll be darned," make beef stronganoff, and wear sandwich bags over their fingers when greasing cake pans with Crisco. I'm convinced that they can also take an elective course called "Birthday Parties: The Real Deal," where they learn that kids should only have one birthday party, and it's when they turn six. Not five, not seven, not 10. One birthday party. Six years old.

My mom is a proud graduate of Mom School. I bet she took every elective offered. And I think my former boss took at least that one course in birthdays as well.

I was really pleased to hear that my boss has the one-birthday-party rule, because she's actually the first person I've met (parent or child, aside from my mom and brothers) who has that story to tell. It was something sort of traumatic to me growing up. My friends always had birthday parties, and I'd always be hauling some sort of wrapped gift with a home-curlicued (Mom School) bow, over to the movie theater, to their houses, to McDonald's, wherever, year after year, while I only got one chance to get presents from the same kids. It didn't seem right. (Turns out, that's one of the reasons mom wasn't so into the multi-year birthday party--burdening parents with toy shopping for someone else's kid at Children's Palace year after year.)

Anyway, so I had my first and only birthday party when I turned six in the late 80s. I remember working on the invitations in our dining room. It's when I learned what "RSVP" stands for. I remember the actual party day--it was soggy. (Michigan has this habit of getting strangely warm right in the middle of February, half-melting the snow.) A group of us met at Caesarland (owned by the Little Caesars pizza chain, where "arcade games and play structures abound"), which--I think--was the location of my older brother's birthday party three years earlier. [Editor's note: Mom says: James's was in our back yard, by the way. And Rob's was at a gymnastics place.] There was certainly pizza. I don't totally remember the rest. In the inevitable way that trashy, delicious food always hits the spot at kids' birthday parties, I bet the pizza was really good. Especially after a few runs down the indoor twisty-slide.


My younger brother, best friend Gina, and neighbor Allison at my first and only birthday party at Caesarland

Another birthday oddity of ours--inevitably a Mom School takeaway as well--was the homemade, from-scratch birthday cake. This only happened when we turned 11. Before then? After? Duncan Hines, out of a box, no questions. This time, I remember more: Hovering over the mixing bowl, watching the eggs turn the sugar slushy, and sifting flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in our creaky, dented, ancient tin sifter that probably came from some great-great-relative somewhere (and still lives in mom's cupboard in Michigan). Mom wouldn't let us run around the house once the cake was in the oven. Something about the vibrations from our feet on the hardwood floor causing the cake to drop. (I've been unable to verify that this is actually a legitimate fact.) We were responsible for it all--the baking, the presentation--so it had a very esteemed, welcome-to-young-adulthood feel to it.

There are other birthday memories I have, and, very telling, they mostly involve food. Like the time I asked for steak for my birthday dinner and mom actually did it (and cooked it perfectly!). And the time we made subs. And the time mom and I failed at making cupcakes in ice cream cones for my classroom birthday treat. I think it's also really special that these memories come with a very distinct image of my mother, putting her hard-earned Mom School degree to work (which, by the way, she still does today--thanks for the cheesy Hallmark birthday card).

Happy birthday.